Knowledge that Transforms

[A simple introduction to contingent claim valuation of risky assets in a discrete time, stochastic interest-rate economy is provided. Taking the term structure of interest rates as exogenous, closed-form solutions are derived for European options written on (i) Treasury bills, (ii) interest-rate forward contracts, (iii) interest-rate futures contracts, (iv) Treasury bonds, (v) interest-rate caps, (vi) stock options, (vii) equity forward contracts, (viii) equity futures contracts, (ix) Eurodollar liabilities, and (x) foreign exchange contracts.]

[We show that time variation in expected returns and/or partial price adjustments lead to a downward bias in previous estimators of both the spread and its components. We introduce a new approach that provides unbiased and efficient estimators of the components of the spread. We find that between 77 and 97 percent of the downward bias in previous spread estimates is caused by time variation in expected returns. More importantly, the adverse-selection component, though significant, accounts for a much smaller proportion (8 to 13 percent) of the quoted spread, at least for small trades, than the proportion (over 40 percent) previously reported in the literature. Order processing costs are the predominant component of quoted spreads.]

[The extent to which the observed procedures for selling new issues are efficient is studied. We show that a posted-price mechanism, in conjunction with nonbinding preplay communication and participation restrictions, leads to an allocation of the security (and payment) that maximizes the seller's expected revenue, given the informational constraints imposed by the optimizing incentives of the potential buyers.]

[In this article I develop a model that accounts for interdependence between trading costs in various asset markets arising from the optimizing behavior of liquidity traders. The model suggests that noise trading is an important determinant of the liquidity of asset markets and provides a positive theory for diversified asset holdings by risk-neutral liquidity traders.]

[We examine the intraday relationship between returns and returns volatility in the stock index and stock index futures markets. Our results indicate a strong intermarket dependence in the volatility of the cash and futures returns. Price innovations that originate in either the stock or futures markets can predict the future volatility in the other market. We show that this relationship persists even during periods in which the dependence in the returns themselves appears to weaken. The findings are robust to controlling for potential market frictions such as asynchronous trading in the stock index. Our results have implications for understanding the pattern of information flows between the two markets.]

[In the context of an equilibrium asset-pricing model, the dynamics of the instantaneous real interest rate and the instantaneous rate of expected inflation are estimated. Unlike previous models, we allow real interest rates and inflation to be mutually dependent processes. The model is estimated as a state-space system that includes observations on various maturity Treasury bills and NBER-ASA survey forecasts of inflation. Over the period 1968-1988, we find evidence that instantaneous real interest rates and expected inflation are significantly negatively correlated. Real interest rates also display greater volatility and weaker mean reversion than expected inflation.]

[We study the stock price distributions that arise when prices follow a diffusion process with a stochastically varying volatility parameter. We use analytic techniques to derive an explicit closed-form solution for the case where volatility is driven by an arithmetic Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (or AR1) process. We then apply our results to two related problems in the finance literature: (i) options pricing in a world of stochastic volatility, and (ii) the relationship between stochastic volatility and the nature of "fat tails" in stock price distributions.]

[With time-varying adverse selection in the market for new equity issues, firms will prefer to issue equity when the market is most informed about the quality of the firm. This implies that equity issues tend to follow credible information releases. In addition, if the asymmetry in information increases over time between information releases, the price drop at the announcement of an equity issue should increase in the time since the last information release. Using earnings releases as a proxy for informative events, we find evidence supporting these propositions.]

[We examine the volatility implications of around-the-clock foreign exchange trading with transaction data on futures contracts from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the London International Financial Futures Exchange. We find higher U.S.-European and U.S.-Japanese exchange-rate volatilities during U.S. trading hours and higher European cross-rate volatilities during European trading hours. While the disclosure of private information through trading may partly explain these volatility patterns, we conclude that the increased volatility is more likely driven by macroeconomic news announcements. An analysis of inter- and intraday data also reveals that volatility increases at times that coincide with the release of U.S. macroeconomic news.]