IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgfe/96652.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Pricing Kernel in Options

Author

Abstract

The empirical option valuation literature specifies the pricing kernel through the price of risk, or defines it implicitly as the ratio of risk-neutral and physical probabilities. Instead, we extend the economically appealing Rubinstein-Brennan kernels to a dynamic framework that allows pathand volatility-dependence. Because of low statistical power, kernels with different economic properties can produce similar overall option fit, even when they imply cross-sectional pricing anomalies and implausible risk premiums. Imposing parsimonious economic restrictions such as monotonicity and path-independence (recovery theory) achieves good option fit and reasonable estimates of equity and variance risk premiums, while resolving pricing kernel anomalies.

Suggested Citation

  • Steven Heston & Kris Jacobs & Hyung Joo Kim, 2023. "The Pricing Kernel in Options," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2023-053, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:96652
    DOI: 10.17016/FEDS.2023.053
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2023053pap.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17016/FEDS.2023.053?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Torben G. Andersen & Nicola Fusari & Viktor Todorov, 2015. "Parametric Inference and Dynamic State Recovery From Option Panels," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83(3), pages 1081-1145, May.
    2. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 1985. "The equity premium: A puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 145-161, March.
    3. Garcia, Rene & Luger, Richard & Renault, Eric, 2003. "Empirical assessment of an intertemporal option pricing model with latent variables," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1-2), pages 49-83.
    4. Anders B. Trolle & Eduardo S. Schwartz, 2009. "Unspanned Stochastic Volatility and the Pricing of Commodity Derivatives," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(11), pages 4423-4461, November.
    5. Ait-Sahalia, Yacine & Lo, Andrew W., 2000. "Nonparametric risk management and implied risk aversion," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 9-51.
    6. Tim Bollerslev & George Tauchen & Hao Zhou, 2009. "Expected Stock Returns and Variance Risk Premia," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(11), pages 4463-4492, November.
    7. Peter Christoffersen & Steven Heston & Kris Jacobs, 2013. "Capturing Option Anomalies with a Variance-Dependent Pricing Kernel," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(8), pages 1963-2006.
    8. Pan, Jun, 2002. "The jump-risk premia implicit in options: evidence from an integrated time-series study," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 3-50, January.
    9. A. S. Hurn & K. A. Lindsay & A. J. McClelland, 2015. "Estimating the Parameters of Stochastic Volatility Models Using Option Price Data," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(4), pages 579-594, October.
    10. Bakshi, Gurdip & Cao, Charles & Chen, Zhiwu, 1997. "Empirical Performance of Alternative Option Pricing Models," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(5), pages 2003-2049, December.
    11. Jackwerth, Jens Carsten, 2000. "Recovering Risk Aversion from Option Prices and Realized Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 13(2), pages 433-451.
    12. Bakshi, Gurdip & Madan, Dilip & Panayotov, George, 2010. "Returns of claims on the upside and the viability of U-shaped pricing kernels," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 130-154, July.
    13. Hansen, Lars Peter & Jagannathan, Ravi, 1991. "Implications of Security Market Data for Models of Dynamic Economies," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(2), pages 225-262, April.
    14. Peter Christoffersen & Kris Jacobs & Karim Mimouni, 2010. "Volatility Dynamics for the S&P500: Evidence from Realized Volatility, Daily Returns, and Option Prices," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(8), pages 3141-3189, August.
    15. John Y. Campbell & John Cochrane, 1999. "Force of Habit: A Consumption-Based Explanation of Aggregate Stock Market Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(2), pages 205-251, April.
    16. Chernov, Mikhail, 2003. "Empirical reverse engineering of the pricing kernel," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1-2), pages 329-364.
    17. Larry G. Epstein & Stanley E. Zin, 2013. "Substitution, risk aversion and the temporal behavior of consumption and asset returns: A theoretical framework," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 12, pages 207-239, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    18. Heston, Steven L, 1993. "A Closed-Form Solution for Options with Stochastic Volatility with Applications to Bond and Currency Options," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(2), pages 327-343.
    19. Jessica A. Wachter, 2013. "Can Time-Varying Risk of Rare Disasters Explain Aggregate Stock Market Volatility?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(3), pages 987-1035, June.
    20. Anisha Ghosh & Christian Julliard & Alex P. Taylor, 2017. "What Is the Consumption-CAPM Missing? An Information-Theoretic Framework for the Analysis of Asset Pricing Models," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(2), pages 442-504.
    21. David S. Bates, 2006. "Maximum Likelihood Estimation of Latent Affine Processes," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(3), pages 909-965.
    22. Carr, Peter & Wu, Liuren, 2007. "Stochastic skew in currency options," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 213-247, October.
    23. Jackwerth, Jens Carsten & Rubinstein, Mark, 1996. "Recovering Probability Distributions from Option Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(5), pages 1611-1632, December.
    24. Chernov, Mikhail & Graveline, Jeremy & Zviadadze, Irina, 2018. "Crash Risk in Currency Returns," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(1), pages 137-170, February.
    25. Jones, Christopher S., 2003. "The dynamics of stochastic volatility: evidence from underlying and options markets," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1-2), pages 181-224.
    26. Matthew Linn & Sophie Shive & Tyler Shumway, 2018. "Pricing Kernel Monotonicity and Conditional Information," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(2), pages 493-531.
    27. Shaliastovich, Ivan, 2015. "Learning, confidence, and option prices," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 187(1), pages 18-42.
    28. Torben G. Andersen & Nicola Fusari & Viktor Todorov, 2017. "Short-Term Market Risks Implied by Weekly Options," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 72(3), pages 1335-1386, June.
    29. Bjørn Eraker & Ivan Shaliastovich, 2008. "An Equilibrium Guide To Designing Affine Pricing Models," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 519-543, October.
    30. Rosenberg, Joshua V. & Engle, Robert F., 2002. "Empirical pricing kernels," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 341-372, June.
    31. Mark Rubinstein, 1976. "The Valuation of Uncertain Income Streams and the Pricing of Options," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 7(2), pages 407-425, Autumn.
    32. Song, Zhaogang & Xiu, Dacheng, 2016. "A tale of two option markets: Pricing kernels and volatility risk," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 190(1), pages 176-196.
    33. Xavier Gabaix, 2012. "Variable Rare Disasters: An Exactly Solved Framework for Ten Puzzles in Macro-Finance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(2), pages 645-700.
    34. Fousseni Chabi-Yo, 2012. "Pricing Kernels with Stochastic Skewness and Volatility Risk," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(3), pages 624-640, March.
    35. Bates, David S., 2003. "Empirical option pricing: a retrospection," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1-2), pages 387-404.
    36. Merton, Robert C, 1973. "An Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(5), pages 867-887, September.
    37. Jun Liu, 2005. "An Equilibrium Model of Rare-Event Premia and Its Implication for Option Smirks," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(1), pages 131-164.
    38. Bjørn Eraker & Michael Johannes & Nicholas Polson, 2003. "The Impact of Jumps in Volatility and Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(3), pages 1269-1300, June.
    39. Breeden, Douglas T & Litzenberger, Robert H, 1978. "Prices of State-contingent Claims Implicit in Option Prices," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(4), pages 621-651, October.
    40. Chernov, Mikhail & Ghysels, Eric, 2000. "A study towards a unified approach to the joint estimation of objective and risk neutral measures for the purpose of options valuation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 407-458, June.
    41. Horatio Cuesdeanu & Jens Carsten Jackwerth, 2018. "The pricing kernel puzzle: survey and outlook," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 289-329, August.
    42. Ravi Bansal & Amir Yaron, 2004. "Risks for the Long Run: A Potential Resolution of Asset Pricing Puzzles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(4), pages 1481-1509, August.
    43. Bjørn Eraker, 2004. "Do Stock Prices and Volatility Jump? Reconciling Evidence from Spot and Option Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(3), pages 1367-1404, June.
    44. Brennan, M J, 1979. "The Pricing of Contingent Claims in Discrete Time Models," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 34(1), pages 53-68, March.
    45. Likuan Qin & Vadim Linetsky, 2016. "Positive Eigenfunctions of Markovian Pricing Operators: Hansen-Scheinkman Factorization, Ross Recovery, and Long-Term Pricing," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(1), pages 99-117, February.
    46. Itamar Drechsler, 2013. "Uncertainty, Time-Varying Fear, and Asset Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(5), pages 1843-1889, October.
    47. Sang Byung Seo & Jessica A. Wachter, 2019. "Option Prices in a Model with Stochastic Disaster Risk," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(8), pages 3449-3469, August.
    48. Barone-Adesi, Giovanni & Fusari, Nicola & Mira, Antonietta & Sala, Carlo, 2020. "Option market trading activity and the estimation of the pricing kernel: A Bayesian approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 216(2), pages 430-449.
    49. Ai[diaeresis]t-Sahalia, Yacine & Kimmel, Robert, 2007. "Maximum likelihood estimation of stochastic volatility models," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 413-452, February.
    50. Merton, Robert C., 1980. "On estimating the expected return on the market : An exploratory investigation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 323-361, December.
    51. Mark Broadie & Mikhail Chernov & Michael Johannes, 2007. "Model Specification and Risk Premia: Evidence from Futures Options," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(3), pages 1453-1490, June.
    52. Tyler Beason & David Schreindorfer, 2022. "Dissecting the Equity Premium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(8), pages 2203-2222.
    53. Duffie, Darrell & Epstein, Larry G, 1992. "Asset Pricing with Stochastic Differential Utility," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(3), pages 411-436.
    54. Hansen, Lars Peter & Singleton, Kenneth J, 1982. "Generalized Instrumental Variables Estimation of Nonlinear Rational Expectations Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pages 1269-1286, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christoffersen, Peter & Heston, Steven & Jacobs, Kris, 2010. "Option Anomalies and the Pricing Kernel," Working Papers 11-17, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    2. Benzoni, Luca & Collin-Dufresne, Pierre & Goldstein, Robert S., 2011. "Explaining asset pricing puzzles associated with the 1987 market crash," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(3), pages 552-573, September.
    3. Horatio Cuesdeanu & Jens Carsten Jackwerth, 2018. "The pricing kernel puzzle: survey and outlook," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 289-329, August.
    4. Stylianos Perrakis, 2022. "From innovation to obfuscation: continuous time finance fifty years later," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 36(3), pages 369-401, September.
    5. Song, Zhaogang & Xiu, Dacheng, 2016. "A tale of two option markets: Pricing kernels and volatility risk," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 190(1), pages 176-196.
    6. Byun, Suk Joon & Jeon, Byoung Hyun & Min, Byungsun & Yoon, Sun-Joong, 2015. "The role of the variance premium in Jump-GARCH option pricing models," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 38-56.
    7. Du Du & Dan Luo, 2019. "The Pricing of Jump Propagation: Evidence from Spot and Options Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(5), pages 2360-2387, May.
    8. Kadir G. Babaoglou & Peter Christoffersen & Steven L. Heston & Kris Jacobs, 2014. "Option Valuation with Volatility Components, Fat Tails, and Nonlinear Pricing Kernels," CREATES Research Papers 2015-55, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    9. René Garcia & Eric Ghysels & Eric Renault, 2004. "The Econometrics of Option Pricing," CIRANO Working Papers 2004s-04, CIRANO.
    10. Sang Byung Seo & Jessica A. Wachter, 2019. "Option Prices in a Model with Stochastic Disaster Risk," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(8), pages 3449-3469, August.
    11. Shaliastovich, Ivan, 2015. "Learning, confidence, and option prices," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 187(1), pages 18-42.
    12. Almeida, Caio & Freire, Gustavo, 2022. "Pricing of index options in incomplete markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(1), pages 174-205.
    13. Hamed Ghanbari & Michael Oancea & Stylianos Perrakis, 2021. "Shedding light on a dark matter: Jump diffusion and option‐implied investor preferences," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 27(2), pages 244-286, March.
    14. Peter Reinhard Hansen & Chen Tong, 2022. "Option Pricing with Time-Varying Volatility Risk Aversion," Papers 2204.06943, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2022.
    15. Peter Christoffersen & Kris Jacobs & Chayawat Ornthanalai, 2012. "GARCH Option Valuation: Theory and Evidence," CREATES Research Papers 2012-50, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    16. Papantonis, Ioannis, 2016. "Volatility risk premium implications of GARCH option pricing models," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 104-115.
    17. Christoffersen, Peter & Jacobs, Kris & Chang, Bo Young, 2013. "Forecasting with Option-Implied Information," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 581-656, Elsevier.
    18. Sang Byung Seo & Jessica A. Wachter, 2013. "Option Prices in a Model with Stochastic Disaster Risk," NBER Working Papers 19611, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Shackleton, Mark B. & Taylor, Stephen J. & Yu, Peng, 2010. "A multi-horizon comparison of density forecasts for the S&P 500 using index returns and option prices," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(11), pages 2678-2693, November.
    20. David Backus & Mikhail Chernov & Ian Martin, 2011. "Disasters Implied by Equity Index Options," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(6), pages 1969-2012, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:96652. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.