Yield Curve Shapes and the Asymptotic Short Rate Distribution in Affine One-Factor Models

We consider a model for interest rates, where the short rate is given by a time-homogenous, one-dimensional affine process in the sense of Duffie, Filipovic and Schachermayer. We show that in such a model yield curves can only be normal, inverse or humped (i.e. endowed with a single local maximum). Each case can be characterized by simple conditions on the present short rate. We give conditions under which the short rate process will converge to a limit distribution and describe the limit distribution in terms of its cumulant generating function. We apply our results to the Vasicek model, the CIR model, a CIR model with added jumps and a model of Ornstein-Uhlenbeck type

S-Stable Laws in Insurance and Finance and Generalization to Nilpotent Lie Groups

s-stable laws on Hilbert spaces, associated with some nonlinear transformations, were introduced by Jurek.((16, 18)) Here, we interpret certain s-stable motions as limits of total amount of claims processes (up to a deterministic reserve) of a portfolio of (nontraded) excess-of-loss reinsurance contracts and show that they lead to Erlang's model. We also give explicit formulas for the price of perpetual American options in case the logarithm of the price of the underlying asset is an s-stable motion. Furthermore, we generalize the concept of s-stability to simply connected nilpotent Lie groups. For step 2-nilpotent Lie groups we characterize the Levy measure and the s-domain of attraction of nongaussian s-stable convolution semigroups