A Switching Black-Scholes Model and Option Pricing

dc.contributor.advisorHoek, John van deren
dc.contributor.authorWebb, Melanie Annen
dc.contributor.schoolApplied Mathematicsen
dc.date.issued2003en
dc.description.abstractDerivative pricing, and in particular the pricing of options, is an important area of current research in financial mathematics. Experts debate on the best method of pricing and the most appropriate model of a price process to use. In this thesis, a ``Switching Black-Scholes'' model of a price process is proposed. This model is based on the standard geometric Brownian motion (or Black-Scholes) model of a price process. However, the drift and volatility parameters are permitted to vary between a finite number of possible values at known times, according to the state of a hidden Markov chain. This type of model has been found to replicate the Black-Scholes implied volatility smiles observed in the market, and produce option prices which are closer to market values than those obtained from the traditional Black-Scholes formula. As the Markov chain incorporates a second source of uncertainty into the Black-Scholes model, the Switching Black-Scholes market is incomplete, and no unique option pricing methodology exists. In this thesis, we apply the methods of mean-variance hedging, Esscher transforms and minimum entropy in order to price options on assets which evolve according to the Switching Black-Scholes model. C programs to compute these prices are given, and some particular numerical examples are examined. Finally, filtering techniques and reference probability methods are applied to find estimates of the model parameters and state of the hidden Markov chain.en
dc.description.dissertationThesis (Ph.D.)--Applied Mathematics, 2003.en
dc.format.extent439092 bytesen
dc.format.extent1105970 bytesen
dc.format.extent145201 bytesen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2440/37916
dc.language.isoenen
dc.subjectfinance, Black-Scholes, option pricing, regime switching, hidden markov chain, mean-variance hedging, esscher transforms, entropy, filtering, parameter estimation, derivative pricing, financial mathematicsen
dc.titleA Switching Black-Scholes Model and Option Pricingen
dc.typeThesisen

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