We document that the implied volatility skew of S&P 500 index puts is non-decreasing in the disaster index and risk-neutral variance, contrary to the implications of a broad class of no-arbitrage models. The key to the puzzle lies in recognizing that, as the disaster risk increases, customers...

We document that the implied volatility skew of S&P 500 index puts is non-decreasing in the disaster index and risk-neutral variance, contrary to the implications of a broad class of no-arbitrage models. The key to the puzzle lies in recognizing that, as the disaster risk increases, customers...

By applying stochastic dominance arguments, upper bounds on the reservation write price of European calls and puts and lower bounds on the reservation purchase price of these derivatives are derived in the presence of proportional transaction costs incurred in trading the underlying security....

By applying stochastic dominance arguments, upper bounds on the reservation write price of European calls and puts and lower bounds on the reservation purchase price of these derivatives are derived in the presence of proportional transaction costs incurred in trading the underlying security....

We document that the skew of S&P500 index puts is non-decreasing in the disaster index and risk-neutral variance, contrary to the implications of no-arbitrage models. Our model resolves the puzzle by recognizing that, as the disaster risk increases, customers demand more puts as insurance while...