On the American swaption in the linear-rational framework

Abstract

We study American swaptions in the linear-rational (LR) term structure model introduced in [5]. The American swaption pricing problem boils down to an optimal stopping problem that is analytically tractable. It reduces to a free-boundary problem that we tackle by the local time-space calculus of [7]. We characterize the optimal stopping boundary as the unique solution to a nonlinear integral equation that can be readily solved numerically. We obtain the arbitrage-free price of the American swaption and the optimal exercise strategies in terms of swap rates for both fixed-rate payer and receiver swaps. Finally, we show that Bermudan swaptions can be efficiently priced as well.Comment: forthcoming in Quantitative Finance, 201