A Note on Contingent Claims Pricing with Non-Traded Assets

One of the main objections to applying contingent claims analysis outside the area of derivatives pricing, such as to the pricing of corporate (or sovereign) debt, has been that it is not possible to trade in the relevant state variable, e.g. the assets of a firm. Consequently, replicating portfolios can not be formed and preference free pricing does not result. The aim of this paper is to show that assuming traded assets, as is routinely done, is inconsistent with the presence of stocks and bonds. It is also unnecessary. We argue that a superior alternative to obtain a complete markets setting, is to assume that at least one of the firm's securities, e.g. equity, is traded.corporate bonds; real options; contingent claims; traded assets; underlying assets.

Stock Options as Barrier Contingent Claims

This paper contributes in two ways. First it extends the Geske (1979) compound option pricing model to the case where the underlying call is a down-and-out claim. Second it provides an internally consistent frame-work for valuing options on general corporate securities. Numerical results suggest that the detailed characteristics of the underlying capital structure (such as coupons, principal and maturities) may substantially influence the pricing of options.Compound barrier contingent claims; option pricing

The Valuation of Corporate Liabilities: Theory and Tests

We develop a structural bond pricing approach and implement it on a large panel of US industrial bonds using an efficient maximum likelihood methodology. We evaluate the model's ability to predict yield spread levels and changes out-of-sample. Errors are smaller and distinctly less variable than those found in previous implementations of structural as well as reduced form models. Furthermore, our analysis provide evidence that bond yield spreads incorporate a substantial liquidity component on top of the default spread structural models are designed to capture.corporate bonds; credit risk; yield spreads; default; structural bond pricing models