A counter-example to an option pricing formula under transaction costs

In the paper by Melnikov and Petrachenko (Finance Stoch. 9: 141–149, 2005), a procedure is put forward for pricing and replicating an arbitrary European contingent claim in the binomial model with bid-ask spreads. We present a counter-example to show that the option pricing formula stated in that paper can in fact lead to arbitrage. This is related to the fact that under transaction costs a superreplicating strategy may be less expensive to set up than a strictly replicating one.     

Shadow costs of incomplete information and short sales in the valuation of the firm and its assets

This paper presents a simple framework for the valuation of compound options within shadow costs of incomplete information and short sales. The shadow cost includes two components. The first component is the product of pure information cost due to imperfect knowledge and heterogeneous expectations. The second component represents the additional cost caused by the short-selling constraint. Information costs are linked to Merton's (1987. Journal of Finance 42, 510) model of capital market equilibrium with incomplete information, CAPMI. This model is extended by Wu et al. (1996. Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, 7, 136) who propose an incomplete-information capital market equilibrium with heterogeneous expectations and short sale restrictions, GCAPM. This model is used in our paper to provide for the first time in the literature analytic solutions for derivatives in the presence of both shadow costs of incomplete information and short sales.When deriving the compound call option formula, we consider a call option on a stock, which is itself an option on the assets of the firm. Our methodology incorporates shadow costs of incomplete information and short sales on the firm's assets as well as the effects of leverage in the capital structure. The formula can be useful in the valuation of several corporate liabilities in the presence of information uncertainty and short sales constraints about the firm and its cash flows. Our analysis can be used for the valuation of several real options.     

Managing dynamic epidemiological risks through trade

There is growing concern that trade, by connecting geographically isolated regions, unintentionally facilitates the spread of invasive pathogens and pests – forms of biological pollution that pose significant risks to ecosystem and human health. We use a bioeconomic framework to examine whether trade always increases private risks, focusing specifically on pathogen risks from live animal trade. When the pathogens have already established and traders bear some private risk, we find two results that run counter to the conventional wisdom on trade. First, uncertainty about the disease status of individual animals held in inventory may increase the incentives to trade relative to the disease-free case. Second, trade may facilitate reduced long-run disease prevalence among buyers. These results arise because disease risks are endogenous due to dynamic feedback processes involving valuable inventories, and markets facilitate the management of private risks that producers face with or without trade.     

Multiple bank regulators and risk taking

The potential for banks to arbitrage between regulators exists both in the US, with its multiple federal banking regulators, and in Europe, due to multinational banking. This paper models multiple regulators that have an agency bias, which can give rise to a “race to the bottom”. The model is used to analyze the interaction between the regulatory equilibrium and several salient pre-crisis features: rising bank leverage; wholesale funding with asymmetric information; and increasing supervisional costs to disentangling bank asset exposures. Each of these raises bank risk taking on its own, but regulatory competition is shown to be an amplification mechanism.     

Intermarket efficiency: An application of interbattery APT to mortgage-backed securities

Increasing popularity of investments in mortgage-backed securities has led to closer integration of the mortgage market into traditional capital markets. Using monthly returns during 1982–1988 for common stocks, Treasury bonds and GNMA and FHLMC mortgage-backed securities, the interbattery factor analytic Arbitrage Pricing Theory of (Cho, 1984) is used to test five hypotheses for intramarket and intermarket integration. Results indicate that three to five common factors are found within the same security market, while only one to three factors are found common between different markets.The APT could not be rejected within the same security market, but was rejected in most intermarket comparisons. While risk-free rates are found to differ between markets, the risk premium tests are conclusive indicators of integration. Our results support claims that the stock, bond, and the mortgage-backed securities markets are integrated.     

股票停牌、涨跌停与ETF定价效率——基于上证50ETF日度数据的实证研究

本文应用中国股市2007年至2011年的数据,研究了上证50ETF市场价格和基金净值的相关关系,以及折溢价水平及其影响因素。基于ETF的申购赎回和交易机制,在成分股涨跌停板和停牌期间,由于ETF二级市场价格具有价格发现功能,ETF市场价格可能较大偏离(形式上的)ETF净值,造成ETF的异常折溢价,而此类异常折溢价并不是真正的套利机会。另外,上证50ETF的市场价格与基金净值存在显著同步变动的关系;在涨跌停板和停牌期间之外,上证50ETF的折溢价水平低于套利所需的交易成本。本文研究表明,上证50ETF具有较高的定价效率。     

资产价格泡沫研究述评:实验金融学视角

本文从实验金融学的视角介绍了资产泡沫最新的定义和分类,阐述了投机性泡沫、理性泡沫与非理性泡沫之间的区别和联系,着重从信息对称、信息不对称、有限套利泡沫、异质信念和实验金融五个方面系统评述了资产价格泡沫理论的发展历程和新进展,指出该领域进一步的研究方向和中国开展资产价格泡沫研究的重要意义。研究表明,随着现代金融学的高速发展,学界对资产泡沫的研究日益深入。特别是非理性和实验金融学视角的引入,突破了传统金融框架的束缚,为这一课题研究带来了新的认知和理解。即便如此,目前仍无法根除资产泡沫产生的可能性。很多相关问题,如资产泡沫产生的时间和根本原因,仍然等待着学者们去探索和研究。     

股指期货对A股波动性的影响

鉴于GARCH模型适合研究金融时间序列的方差随时间变化的情况,笔者采用该模型研究股指期货的推出能否减少股票市场的波动性。本文选取股指期货推出前后一年的沪深300指数的日收盘价作为原始数据,通过建立GARCH模型就股指期货对股票市场波动性的影响进行了实证研究,结果显示,股指期货的引入在一定程度上降低了我国股票现货市场的波动性,但不显著。     

On the pricing of real estate index linked swaps

In this paper we discuss the pricing of commercial real estate index linked swaps (CREILS). This particular pricing problem has been studied by Buttimer et al. in a previous paper in this journal (6 [1997]: 16). We show that their results are only approximately correct and that the true theoretical price of the swap is in fact equal to zero. This result is shown to hold regardless of the specific model chosen for the index process, the dividend process, and the interest rate term structure. We provide an intuitive economic argument as well as a full mathematical proof of our results. In particular we show that the nonzero result in the previous paper is due to two specific numerical approximations introduced in that paper, and we discuss these approximation errors from a theoretical as well as from a numerical point of view.