Arbitrage pricing of defaultable game options with applications to convertible bonds

This paper is the first in a series that we devote to studying the problems of valuation and hedging of defaultable game options in general, and convertible corporate bonds in particular. Here, we present mathematical foundations for our overall study. Specifically, we provide several results characterizing the arbitrage price of a defaultable game option in terms of relevant Dynkin games. In addition, we provide important results regarding price decomposition of defaultable options. These general results are then specified to the case of convertible bonds, yielding in particular a decomposition of convertible bonds in an optional and a bond component.     

Empirical evaluation of asset pricing models: Arbitrage and pricing errors in contingent claims

Hansen and Jagannathan (1997) have developed two measures of pricing errors for asset-pricing models: the maximum pricing error in all static portfolios of the test assets and the maximum pricing error in all contingent claims of the assets. In this paper, we develop simulation-based Bayesian inference for these measures. While the literature reports that the time-varying extensions substantially reduce pricing errors of classic models on the standard test assets, our analysis shows that the reduction is much smaller based on the second measure. Those time-varying models have large pricing errors on the contingent claims of the test assets because their stochastic discount factors are often negative and admit arbitrage opportunities.     

Asset pricing under information with stochastic volatility

Based on a general specification of the asset specific pricing kernel, we develop a pricing model using an information process with stochastic volatility. We derive analytical asset and option pricing formulas. The asset prices in this rational expectations model exhibit crash-like, strong downward movements. The resulting option pricing formula is consistent with the strong negative skewness and high levels of kurtosis observed in empirical studies. Furthermore, we determine credit spreads in a simple structural model.      

Arbitrage pricing,transaction costs and taxation of capital gains: A study of government bonds with the same maturity date

This paper examines one of the few cases of seemingly redundant securities: sets of three government bonds with the same maturity date. Within the bounds on relative bond prices established by tax-exempt investors in a market with proportional transaction costs, the taxation of capital gains on the basis of realization has a significant impact on relative prices. The empirical evidence supports the tax option effect discussed by Constantinides and Ingersoll, but does not generally support the segmented tax-clientele equilibrium discussed by Schaefer.     

Investor sentiment as conditioning information in asset pricing

This paper assesses whether incorporating investor sentiment as conditioning information in asset-pricing models helps capture the impacts of the size, value, liquidity and momentum effects on risk-adjusted returns of individual stocks. We use survey sentiment measures and a composite index as proxies for investor sentiment. In our conditional framework, the size effect becomes less important in the conditional CAPM and is no longer significant in all the other models examined. Furthermore, the conditional models often capture the value, liquidity and momentum effects.     

Losing Money on Arbitrage: Optimal Dynamic Portfolio Choice in Markets with Arbitrage Opportunities

We derive the optimal investment policy of a risk-averse investorin a market where there is a textbook arbitrage opportunity,but where liabilities must be secured by collateral. We findthat it is often optimal to underinvest in the arbitrage bytaking a smaller position than collateral constraints allow.Even when the optimal policy is followed, the arbitrage portfoliotypically experiences losses before the final convergence date.In fact, its initial performance may be indistinguishable fromthat of a conventional portfolio with a poor track record. Theseresults have important implications for the role of arbitrageursin financial markets.     

Arbitrage Chains

A privately informed trader will engage in costly arbitrage, that is, trade on his knowledge that the price of an asset is different from the fundamental value if: (1) his order does not move the price immediately to reflect the information; and (2) he can hold the asset until the date when the information is reflected in the price. We study a general equilibrium model in which all agents optimize. In each period, there may be a trader with a limited horizon who has private information about a distant event. Whether he acts on his information, and whether subsequent informed traders act, is shown to depend on the possibility of a sequence or chain of future informed traders spanning the event date. An arbitrageur who receives good news will buy only if it is likely that, at the end of his trading horizon, a subsequent arbitrageur's buying will have pushed up the expected price. We show that limited trading horizons result in inefficient prices, because informed traders do not act on their information until the event date is sufficiently close. We also show that limited horizons can arise because of the cost-carry associated with holding an arbitrage portfolio over an extended period of time.     

The pricing of retail deposits: Concentration and information

The traditional structure-conduct-performance (SCP) hypothesis relates concentration and the mean level of prices but ignores the dispersion of prices around their mean levels. This paper tests two hypotheses which are capable of explaining both the mean and the dispersion of elements in the pricing vector of retail banks—a concentration/collusion-based hypothesis and an asymmetric information-based hypothesis. Evidence is found that the dispersion of bank fees across banks may be due to both market structure and information reasons. The level of bank fees appears to be generally insignificantly related to concentration.     

No Arbitrage and Arbitrage Pricing: A New Approach

We argue that arbitrage-pricing theories (APT) imply the existence of a low-dimensional nonnegative nonlinear pricing kernel. In contrast to standard constructs of the APT, we do not assume a linear factor structure on the payoffs. This allows us to price both primitive and derivative securities. Semi-nonparametric techniques are used to estimate the pricing kernel and test the theory. Empirical results using size-based portfolio returns and yields on bonds reject the nested capital asset-pricing model and linear APT and support the nonlinear APT. Diagnostics show that the nonlinear model is more capable of explaining variations in small firm returns.     

Partial adjustment to public information in the pricing of IPOs

Extant literature shows that IPO first-day returns are correlated with market returns preceding the issue. We propose a rational explanation for this puzzling predictability by adding a public signal to Benveniste and Spindt (1989)’s information-based framework. A novel result of our model is that the compensation required by investors to truthfully reveal their information decreases with the public signal. This “incentive effect” receives strong empirical support in a sample of 6300 IPOs in 1983–2012. Controlling for the incentive effect, the positive relation between initial returns and pre-issue market returns disappears for top-tier underwriters, where the order book is held to be most informative, effectively resolving the predictability puzzle.     

Risk Arbitrage in Takeovers

This article studies the role of risk arbitrageurs in takeoversand the source of their advantage. We show how the presenceof arbitrageurs affects the value of the target shares, sincearbitrageurs are more likely to tender. Therefore an arbitrageurhas the informational advantage of knowing he bought shares.In equilibrium, the number of arbitrageurs buying shares andthe price they pay are determined endogenously. We also presentseveral empirical implications, including the relationship amongtrading volume, takeover premium, liquidity of the shares, andthe number of risk arbitrageurs investing in one particulardeal.     

Risk Aversion and Arbitrage

This paper characterizes conditions under which asset returns and consumption are consistent with risk-averse preferences. It is shown that risk aversion is equivalent to “zero arbitrage” on a transformation of the payoff space. The implicit state prices which are dual to this no-arbitrage condition can be interpreted as prices of “pure consumption hedges.” This zero-arbitrage restriction implies the usual restrictions associated with nonsatiation. The analysis holds in both complete and incomplete market settings.     

The Limits of Arbitrage

Textbook arbitrage in financial markets requires no capital and entails no risk. In reality, almost all arbitrage requires capital, and is typically risky. Moreover, professional arbitrage is conducted by a relatively small number of highly specialized investors using other people's capital. Such professional arbitrage has a number of interesting implications for security pricing, including the possibility that arbitrage becomes ineffective in extreme circumstances, when prices diverge far from fundamental values. The model also suggests where anomalies in financial markets are likely to appear, and why arbitrage fails to eliminate them.     

个人信用信息生保险产品定价中的应用

在欧美国家，个人信用体系已经非常健全，个人信用记录和评分的应用已经深入到了社会中的各个层面。在国际大型财产险企业中，有90％的公司在定价和承保决策中不同程度地使用了客户的信用信息。[第一段]     

个人信用信息在保险产品定价中的应用

在欧美国家,个人信用体系已经非常健全,个人信用记录和评分的应用已经深入到了社会中的各个层面。在国际大型财产险企业中,有90%的公司在定价和承保决策中不同程度地使用了客户的信用信息。保险公司的有关研究发现,个人信用的好坏与个人的风险是正相关的。信用评级较低的司机的理赔率比评级高的要高40%。通过在车险定价模型中考虑个人信用     

Asymmetric information,adverse selection,and the pricing of CMBS

We demonstrate that asymmetric information between sellers (loan originators) and purchasers (investors and securities issuers) of commercial mortgages gives rise to a standard lemons problem, whereby portfolio lenders use private information to liquidate lower quality loans in commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) markets. Conduit lenders, who originate loans for direct sale into securitization markets, mitigate problems of asymmetric information and adverse selection in loan sales. Our theory provides an explanation for the pricing puzzle observed in CMBS markets, whereby conduit CMBS loans are priced higher than portfolio loans, despite widespread belief that conduit loans are originated at lower quality. Consistent with theoretical predictions of a lemons discount, our empirical analysis of 141 CMBS deals and 16,760 CMBS loans shows that, after controlling for observable determinants of loan pricing, conduit loans enjoyed a 34 basis points pricing advantage over portfolio loans in the CMBS market.     

Belief updating, debt pricing and financial decisions under asymmetric information

This paper studies debt holders’ belief updating, valuation of corporate debt, and equity owners’ financing decisions during financial distress under asymmetric information. This is done within a continuous-time framework, where the relevant state variable is assumed to follow an Arithmetic Brownian motion (ABM). ABM can take negative values and has very realistic feature compared with Geometric Brownian motion (GBM). Using Chapter 11 of U.S. Bankruptcy Code as a costly screening device, we can characterize which firm will choose private workouts (in the form of strategic debt service) and which will choose to file for the Chapter 11 Bankruptcy procedure (in the form of debt-equity swap) when the firm is in financial distress. Using arguments similar to equilibrium refinements, we give a clear picture of how debt holders’ beliefs about the firm’s types are updated according to the state variable and the firm’s default behavior, and describe optimal strategies of both parties under those beliefs. We also provide an approximate solution to the debt pricing problem under asymmetric information.