Pricing Options on an Asset with Bernoulli Jump-Diffusion Returns

The price movements of certain assets can be modeled by stochastic processes that combine continuous diffusion with discrete jumps. This paper compares values of options on assets with no jumps, jumps of fixed size, and jumps drawn from a lognormal distribution. It is shown that not only the magnitude but also the direction of the mispricing of the Black-Scholes model relative to jump models can vary with the distribution family of the jump component. This paper also discusses a methodology for the numerical valuation, via a backward induction algorithm, of American options on a jump-diffusion asset whose early exercise may be profitable. These cannot, in general, be accurately priced using analytic models. The procedure has the further advantage of being easily adaptable to nonanalytic, empirical distributions of period returns and to nonstationarity in the underlying diffusion process.     

Bond Yields, Ratings, and Financial Information: Evidence from Public Utility Issues

This study investigates the relative roles of bond ratings and financial information in the setting of bond yields. Structural equation modeling techniques are used to learn whether ratings determine yields or whether both ratings and yields are determined by a concurrent set of economic and financial factors. Tests of alternative structural model configurations provide evidence regarding the associations between bond ratings, financial information, and bond yields. Both ratings and financial information are found to play an important role in determining bond yields. In addition, yields are consistent with the higher rating in cases of split ratings.     

Further Ambiguity When Performance Is Measured by the Security Market Line

This paper employs the optimality conditions for expected utility and mean-variance portfolio problems to examine the ambiguities associated with the security market line criterion both at a point in time and through time. At a point in time, we show that the security market line criterion can be irrelevant, even in meanvariance economies. In a multiperiod setting, we show that the analysis of performance based on portfolio choice is inconsistent with the analysis based on return generating models. Empirical work suggests that the inconsistency can lead to dramatically different estimates of a security's required return.     

The local economic impact of construction projects in a small and relatively self-contained economy: The case of Lancaster University

Whilst the local multiplier impacts of the annual operation of universities has been the subject of intensive research, the economic impacts of capital construction projects have been almost completely ignored. This paper presents the results of detailed analysis of capital projects at Lancaster University in 1993-The reasons for the radically different annual operation and construction multipliers estimated in the Lancaster study are examined. Despite the smaller size of construction multipliers it is argued that it is a serious mistake to estimate local construction multipliers by making simplifying assumptions on the size of the key parameters in the multiplier equations.     

The Structural Relation Between Mortgage and Market Interest Rates

This paper analyzes the dynamic relationship between primary and secondary mortgage markets and the short-term and long-term market interest rates. Using a series of monthly data on fixed rate mortgage rates and GNMA rates, we explore the dependence and speed of adjustment in these primary and secondary mortgage rates to each other as well as to the long and short-term government rates. The results indicate that residential mortgage rates in general, appear to follow the long-term rate and are not very sensitive to movements in the short-term interest rate.     

BOOK REVIEW

Emerging Financial Markets, by David O. Beim and Charles W. Calomiris. McGraw‐Hill/Irwin, 2001, 364 pages, price $75.00.