We establish a necessary and sufficient condition for the risk aversion of an agent's derived utility function to increase with independent, zero-mean background risk. This condition is weaker than standard risk aversion. For small risks, the condition is that the ratio of the third to the first...

In this paper, we investigate the pricing of Japanese yen interest rate swaps during the period 1990 to 1996 with particular reference to credit risk. We estimate the default-free term structure of interest rates using the prices of ten-year Japanese Government Bonds (JGB's), using the basis...

In this paper, we propose an alternative approach for pricing and hedging non-standard American options. In principle, the proposed approach applies to any kind of American-style contract for which the payoff function has a Markovian representation in the state space. Specifically, we obtain an...

This paper examines the convexity bias introduced by pricing interest rate swaps off the Eurocurrency futures curve and the market's adjustment of this bias in prices over time. The convexity bias arises because of the difference between a futures contract and a forward contract on interest...

We build a no-arbitrage model of the term structure, using two stochastic factors on each date, the short-term interest rate and the forward premium. The model is essentially an extension to two factors of the lognormal interest rate model of Black-Karazinski. It allows for mean reversion in the...

We present a cash-flow based model of corporate debt valuation that incorporates two novel features. First, we allow for the separation and optimal determination of the firm's debt-service and dividend policies; in particular, the firm is allowed to maintain cash reserves to meet future debt...

The findings of Jensen-Long and Stiglitz on the optimality of the stock market allocation have led to a controversy over whether the sources of the nonoptimality of value maximization are noncompetive assumptions about the capital market or are inherent externalities associated with uncertainty...