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...

We build a no-arbitrage model of the term structure of interest rates using two stochastic factors, the short-term interest rate and the premium of the futures rate over the short-term interest rate. The model provides and extension of the lognormal interest rate model of Black and Karasinski...

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...

This paper assumes that the underlying asset prices are lognormally distributed and drives necessary and sufficient conditions for the valuation of options using a Black-Scholes type methodology. It is shown that the price of a futures-style, market-to-market option is given by Black s formula...

In this paper, we investigate the pricing of Japanese yen interest rate swaps during the period 1990-96. We obtain measures of the spreads of the swap rates over comparable Japanese Government Bonds (JGBs) for different maturities and analyze the relationship between the swap spreads and credit...

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...

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...

We analyze the impact of option trading and margin rules on the behavior of informed traders and on the microstructure of stock and option markets. In the absence of binding margin requirements, the introduction of an options market causes informed traders to exhibit a relative trading bias...

We consider the demand for state contingent claims in the presence of a zero-mean, non-hedgeable background risk. An agent is defined to be generalized risk averse if he/she reacts to an increase in background risk by choosing a demand function for contingent claims with a less steep slope. We...

We derive general properties of two-factor models of the term structure of interest rates and, in particular, the process for futures prices and rates. Then, as a special case, we derive a no-arbitrage model of the term structure in which any two futures rates act as factors. The term structure...