Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 114-116). Also available on the Internet.

Starting from the most famous Black-Scholes model for the underlying asset price, there has been a large variety of extensions made in recent decades. One main strand is about the models which allow a jump component in the asset price. The first topic of this thesis is about the study of jump risk premium by an equilibrium approach. Different from others, this work provides a more general result by modeling the underlying asset price as the ordinary exponential of a L?vy process. For any given asset price process, the equity premium, pricing kernel and an equilibrium option pricing formula can be derived. Moreover, some empirical evidence such as the negative variance risk premium, implied volatility smirk, and negative skewness risk premium can be well explained by using the relation between the physical and risk-neutral distributions for the jump component. Another strand of the extensions of the Black-Scholes model is about the models which can incorporate stochastic volatility in the asset price. The second topic of this thesis is about the replication of exponential variance, where the key risks are the ones induced by the stochastic volatility and moreover it can be correlated with the returns of the asset, referred to as leverage effect. A time-changed L?vy process is used to incorporate jumps, stochastic volatility and leverage effect all together. The exponential variance can be robustly replicated by European portfolios, without any specification of a model for the stochastic volatility. Beyond the above asset pricing and hedging, portfolio optimization is also discussed. Based on the Merton (1969, 1971)'s reduced portfolio optimization and the delta hedging problem, a portfolio of an option, the underlying stock and a risk-free bond can be optimized in discrete time and its optimal solution can be shown to be a mixture of the Merton's result and the delta hedging strategy. The main approach is the elasticity approach, which has initially been proposed in continuous time. In addition to the above optimization problem in discrete time, the same topic but in a continuous-time regime-switching market is also presented. The use of regime-switching makes our market incomplete, and makes it difficult to use some approaches which are applicable in complete market. To overcome this challenge, two methods are provided. The first method is that we simply do not price the regime-switching risk when obtaining the risk-neutral probability. Then by the idea of elasticity, the utility maximization problem can be formulated as a stochastic control problem with only a single control variable, and explicit solutions can be obtained. The second method is to introduce a functional operator to general value functions of stochastic control problem in such a way that the optimal value function in our setting can be given by the limit of a sequence of value functions defined by iterating the operator. Hence the original problem can be deduced to an auxiliary optimization problem, which can be solved as if we were in a single-regime market, which is complete. / published_or_final_version / Statistics and Actuarial Science / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Firms can use financial derivatives to hedge risks and thereby decrease the probability of bankruptcy and increase total expected tax shields. Firms also can adjust their operational policies in response to fluctuations in prices, a strategy that is often referred to as "operational hedging". In this paper, I investigate the relationship between the optimal financial and operational hedging strategies for a firm, which are endogenously determined together with its capital structure. This allows me to examine how operational hedging affects debt capacity and total expected tax shields and to make quantitative predictions about the relationship between debt issues and hedging policies. I also model the effects of asymmetric information about firms' investment opportunities on their financing and hedging decisions. First, I examine the case in which both debt and hedging contracts are observable. Then, I study the case in which firms' hedging activities are not completely transparent. The models are tested using a data set compiled from the annual reports of North American gold mining companies. Supporting evidence is found for the key predictions of the model under asymmetric information.

This thesis examines the empirical performance of four Affine Jump Diffusion models in pricing and hedging S&P 500 Index options: the Black Scholes (BS) model, Heston???s Stochastic Volatility (SV) model, a Stochastic Volatility Price Jump (SVJ) model and a Stochastic Volatility Price-Volatility Jump (SVJJ) model. The SVJJ model structure allows for simultaneous jumps in price and volatility processes, with correlated jump size distributions. To the best of our knowledge this is the first empirical study to test the hedging performance of the SVJJ model. As part of our research we derive the SVJJ model minimum variance hedge ratio. We find the SVJ model displays the best price prediction. The SV model lacks the structural complexity to eliminate Black Scholes pricing biases, whereas our results indicate the SVJJ model suffers from overfitting. Despite significant evidence from in and out-of-sample pricing that the SV and SVJ models were better specified than the BS model, this did not result in an improvement in dynamic hedging performance. Overall the BS delta hedge and SV minimum variance hedge produced the lowest errors, although their performance across moneyness-maturity categories differed greatly. The SVJ model???s results were surprisingly poor given its superior performance in out-of-sample pricing. We attribute the inadequate performance of the jump models to the lower hedging ratios these models provided, which may be a result of the negative expected jump sizes.

Thesis (M.S.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Agricultural Economics. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Stanford University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 119-121).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 114-116). Also available on the Internet.

O arroz é uma commodity de grande importância para o agronegócio brasileiro e alimento essencial para garantir a segurança alimentar de população de baixa renda do país. Porém, diferentemente de outras commodities de similar ou maior importância, o arroz não possui um contrato futuro em bolsa que auxilie seus agentes a uma melhor gestão do risco de preços. Neste sentido, este trabalho avaliou a viabilidade de implantação de um contrato futuro de arroz no Brasil. Para isso, a presente pesquisa foi dividida em três capítulos distintos. O primeiro avalia as condições primárias necessárias para a implantação de um novo contrato futuro no país, sob a ótica da literatura acerca do sucesso e fracasso de novos contratos futuros. Utilizando-se de uma revisão de literatura crítica, foi possível identificar que, embora a orizicultura apresente algumas condições favoráveis a um novo contrato, como por exemplo, tamanho de mercado potencial, homogeneidade do produto e concentração de mercado, outras características mostram-se inibidoras à sua liquidez, como, por exemplo, uma baixa diversificação do produto final e, principalmente, uma participação estatal ainda ativa no setor, com diferentes programas de subvenção à produção e comercialização do cereal, o que desestimularia a demanda pelo hedge por parte dos agentes beneficiados em tais programas. O segundo capítulo procurou mensurar o grau de risco de preços para os produtores de arroz e para os produtores de outras commodities com contratos futuros negociados em bolsa doméstica. A análise central baseou-se no cálculo de diferentes medidas de dispersão e de risco, como a volatilidade, coeficiente de variação, Lower Partial Moments, Value-at-risk e Conditional Value-at-risk. Para cada uma destas ferramentas, foram assumidos alguns benchmarks centrais para a mensuração do risco. A principal constatação é de que a atividade arrozeira possui o maior grau de risco de preço entre todas as culturas analisadas. Porém, a política de garantia de preços mínimos do governo atua como um importante mecanismo para redução deste risco aos produtores. Considerando esta política, o arroz ainda possui um grau de risco elevado, porém, a patamares semelhantes aos do milho. Por fim, o terceiro capítulo centrou sua discussão na análise de cross-hedge entre os preços à vista de arroz no Brasil com o contrato futuro de arroz de Chicago e os contratos futuros de culturas graneleiras na BM&FBOVESPA, milho e soja. Focando-se as análises no risco de base, na razão de hedge ótima e na efetividade do hedge, constatou-se que nenhum destes contratos futuros são suficientemente efetivos para atender aos agentes atuantes na orizicultura brasileira, não sendo capazes de gerar concorrência com um possível novo contrato de arroz a ponto de reduzir a sua liquidez. A conclusão final é de que o arroz é uma cultura com elevado grau de risco de preços e com a maior parte das condições favoráveis a um novo contrato. Porém, deve-se atentar à intervenção do governo no setor, a qual deve ser reduzida para permitir liquidez suficiente à sobrevivência deste contrato. / Rice is particularly an important agricultural commodity to Brazil and elementary for food security of the low income population. Unlike other important agricultural markets in the country, rice does not have a domestic futures contract. Thereby, the purpose of the thesis is to evaluate the feasibility of a rice futures contract development in Brazil. For that, the research was separated in three major chapters. The first chapter evaluates the primary conditions for a rice futures contract based on the literature of the success and failure of new futures contracts. By a critical literature review it was identified that some conditions are favorable for the contract creation, as the domestic potential market, the commodity homogeneity and the market concentration ratio. However, some features are not satisfactory enough for the new rice futures contract\'s liquidity. A low diversity of final product and also the current government intervention on the rice production and trade are considered as issues that might discourage the hedge demand from rice agents. The second chapter purposed the price risk measurement for rice producers as for producers of several Brazilian agricultural commodities that already have a domestic futures contract. The central analysis was based on dispersion and risk measures calculation, as volatility, coefficient of variation, lower partial moments, value-at-risk and conditional value-at-risk. At each downside risk framework were assumed some benchmarks. Results suggest that rice market presents the highest price risk. However, the government minimum price policy acts as an important mechanism for rice producers risk management. Considering this policy, although rice still have an elevated risk degree, this level decreases and reach a baseline similar than corn. The third chapter centralizes its discussion on the cross-hedge analysis among Brazilian rice cash prices and rice futures prices in Chicago as with corn and soybean futures prices in BM&FBOVESPA. The methods were focused on the basis risk behavior and on the estimation of the optimal hedge ratio and hedge effectiveness. Estimations suggest that none of those cross-hedge operations are enough feasible to attend Brazilian rice agents. Then, cross-hedge operations might not result in cannibalism against a new rice futures contract. Final conclusions lead to a comprehension that rice presents a high price risk level and many primary conditions favorable to the contract creation. Nevertheless, it is necessary carefully attention to the government agricultural policies impacts at this market.

Firms can use financial derivatives to hedge risks and thereby decrease the probability of bankruptcy and increase total expected tax shields. Firms also can adjust their operational policies in response to fluctuations in prices, a strategy that is often referred to as "operational hedging". In this paper, I investigate the relationship between the optimal financial and operational hedging strategies for a firm, which are endogenously determined together with its capital structure. This allows me to examine how operational hedging affects debt capacity and total expected tax shields and to make quantitative predictions about the relationship between debt issues and hedging policies. I also model the effects of asymmetric information about firms' investment opportunities on their financing and hedging decisions. First, I examine the case in which both debt and hedging contracts are observable. Then, I study the case in which firms' hedging activities are not completely transparent. The models are tested using a data set compiled from the annual reports of North American gold mining companies. Supporting evidence is found for the key predictions of the model under asymmetric information. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

The performance of futures contracts and commodity options as hedging instruments were compared in a cash margin hedging framework for a 150 sow farrow to finish hog operation in southeastern Virginia. The expected cash margin (ECM) using corn soybean meal and hog futures were calculated daily from 1975 through 1982. The performance of options and futures were compared in 530 strategies that ranged from strait routine fixed margin hedging to strategies based on forecasted variable margins. / Master of Science