[Microstructure researchers have long understood that information quality has an effect on price formation in the underlying asset market. However, option researchers have largely ignored the fact that information quality might also impact the options market. This article characterizes the nature of the impact by showing how option prices and implied volatility levels are related to the forward looking information quality path. This result follows from a noisy rational expectations model that abandons the normal distribution in favor of the gamma distribution, but maintains the standard assumption of exponential utility. Thus the new model bridges the gap between the microstructure literature that relies so heavily on the normal-exponential framework, and the options literature that relies exclusively on models that are consistent with the limited liability of stock prices. The model's tractability allows for a robustness check against the standard framework and provides a viable setting for analyzing the empirical implications of information quality for the options market.]

This article shows how the market coskewness model of Rubinstein (1973) and Kraus and Litzenberger (1976) is altered when a nonredundant call option is optimally traded. Owing to the option's nonredundancy, the economy's stochastic discount factor (SDF) depends not only on the market return and the square of the market return but also on the option return, the square of the option return, and the product of the market and option returns. This leads to an asset pricing model in which the expected return on any risky asset depends explicitly on the asset's coskewness with option returns. The empirical results show that the option coskewness model outperforms several competing benchmark models. Furthermore, option coskewness captures some of the same risks as the Fama-French factors small minus big (SMB) and high minus low (HML). These results suggest that the factors that drive the pricing of nonredundant options are also important for pricing risky equities.

This article studies equilibrium asset pricing when agents face nonnegative wealth constraints. In the presence of these constraints it is shown that options on the market portfolio are nonredundant securities and the economy's pricing kernel is a function of both the market portfolio and the nonredundant options. This implies that the options should be useful for explaining risky asset returns. To test the theory, a model is derived in which the expected excess return on any risky asset is linearly related (via a collection of betas) to the expected excess return on the market portfolio and to the expected excess returns on the nonredundant options. The empirical results indicate that the returns on traded index options are relevant for explaining the returns on risky asset portfolios.

This article shows how structured financing can be used to solve the asset substitution problem in a dynamic setting. Structuring induces the firm’s owner to optimally choose the first best operating strategy even though the owner’s value function might be locally convex (concave), which would ordinarily lead to overinvestment (underinvestment) in risky projects. This result is demonstrated in two different continuous time settings—one that is based on the risk-shifting framework of Leland (1998) and one that generalizes the scaled return model of Green (1984). It is shown that the contractual nature of the structuring is a key determinant of the issuing firm’s dynamic asset volatility. Furthermore, unlike nonstructured financing, the default (conversion) probability of a structured debt security may be increasing (decreasing) in the firm’s total assets. Structured securities are therefore hedge assets, which potentially explains the popularity of structured securities among investors and third-party issuers.

Microstructure researchers have long understood that information quality has an effect on price formation in the underlying asset market. However, option researchers have largely ignored the fact that information quality might also impact the options market. This article characterizes the nature of the impact by showing how option prices and implied volatility levels are related to the forward looking information quality path. This result follows from a noisy rational expectations model that abandons the normal distribution in favor of the gamma distribution, but maintains the standard assumption of exponential utility. Thus the new model bridges the gap between the microstructure literature that relies so heavily on the normal-exponential framework, and the options literature that relies exclusively on models that are consistent with the limited liability of stock prices. The model's tractability allows for a robustness check against the standard framework and provides a viable setting for analyzing the empirical implications of information quality for the options market. The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected]., Oxford University Press.

This article shows how the market coskewness model of Rubinstein (1973) and Kraus and Litzenberger (1976) is altered when a nonredundant call option is optimally traded. Owing to the option’s nonredundancy, the economy’s stochastic discount factor (SDF) depends not only on the market return and the square of the market return but also on the option return, the square of the option return, and the product of the market and option returns. This leads to an asset pricing model in which the expected return on any risky asset depends explicitly on the asset’s coskewness with option returns. The empirical results show that the option coskewness model outperforms several competing benchmark models. Furthermore, option coskewness captures some of the same risks as the Fama–French factors small minus big (SMB) and high minus low (HML). These results suggest that the factors that drive the pricing of nonredundant options are also important for pricing risky equities.

This article studies equilibrium asset pricing when agents face nonnegative wealth constraints. In the presence of these constraints it is shown that options on the market portfolio are nonredundant securities and the economy's pricing kernel is a function of both the market portfolio and the nonredundant options. This implies that the options should be useful for explaining risky asset returns. To test the theory, a model is derived in which the expected excess return on any risky asset is linearly related (via a collection of betas) to the expected excess return on the market portfolio and to the expected excess returns on the nonredundant options. The empirical results indicate that the returns on traded index options are relevant for explaining the returns on risky asset portfolios.

We estimate the value of the embedded option in U.S. Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS). The embedded option value exhibits time variation that is correlated with periods of deflationary expectations. We construct embedded option explanatory variables that are statistically and economically significant for explaining future inflation, even in the presence of traditional inflation variables such as lagged inflation, the gold return, the crude oil return, the VIX return, liquidity, surveys, and the yield spread between nominal Treasuries and TIPS. After conducting robustness tests, we conclude that the TIPS embedded option contains useful information for future inflation.