We provide evidence of a strong effect of the underlying stock's illiquidity on option prices by showing that the average absolute difference between historical and implied volatility increases with stock illiquidity. This pattern translates into significant excess returns of option trading...

A new method to retrieve the risk-neutral probability measure from observed option prices is developed and a closed form pricing formula for European options is obtained by employing a modified Gram-Charlier series expansion, known as the Gauss-Hermite expansion. This expansion converges for...

I document a sizeable bias that might arise when valuing out of the money American options via the Least Square Method proposed by Longstaff and Schwartz (2001). The key point of this algorithm is the regression-based estimate of the continuation value of an American option. If this regression...

This paper demonstrates that it is possible to improve significantly on the estimated call prices obtained with the regression and simulation-based least-squares Monte Carlo method by using put-call symmetry. The results show that, for a large sample of options with characteristics of relevance...

In this paper we introduce an additive two-factor model for electricity futures prices based on Normal Inverse Gaussian Lévy processes, that fulfills a no-overlapping-arbitrage (NOA) condition. We compute European option prices by Fourier transform methods, introduce a specific calibration...

Option prices seem to behave in ways inconsistent with the Black-Scholes model. Implied volatility varies with the strike price in a parabolic shape that is often called the volatility 'smile.' My objective in this paper is to identify implied probability distributions that might explain this...

In this paper, I study risk-neutral probability densities regarding future Libor rates denominated in British pounds, euros, and US dollars as implied by option prices. I apply Breeden and Litzenberger's (1978) result regarding the relationship between option prices and implied probabilities for...

The price of a European option can be computed as the expected value of the payoff function under the risk-neutral measure. For American options and path-dependent options in general, this principle cannot be applied. In this paper, we derive a model-free analytical formula for the implied...

We analyze American put options in a hyper-exponential jump-diffusion model. Our contribution is threefold. Firstly, by following a maturity randomization approach, we solve the partial integro-differential equation and obtain a tight lower bound for the American option price. Secondly, our...

We find that single-name options trading increases the absolute level of information content of prices (stock price informativeness). We confirm our results through instrumental variable approach to control for potential endogeneity. We further show causality by using a difference-in-difference...