Relying on the existence, in a complete market, of a pricing kernel, this book covers the pricing of assets, derivatives, and bonds in a discrete time, complete markets framework. It is primarily aimed at advanced Masters and PhD students in finance. — Covers asset pricing in a single period model, deriving a simple complete market pricing model and using Stein's lemma to derive a version of the Capital Asset Pricing Model. — Looks more deeply into some of the utility determinants of the pricing kernel, investigating in particular the effect of non-marketable background risks on the shape of the pricing kernel. — Derives the prices of European-style contingent claims, in particular call options, in a one-period model; derives the Black-Scholes model assuming a lognormal distribution for the asset and a pricing kernel with constant elasticity, and emphasizes the idea of a risk-neutral valuation relationship between the price of a contingent claim on an asset and the underlying asset price. — Extends the analysis to contingent claims on assets with non-lognormal distributions and considers the pricing of claims when risk-neutral valuation relationships do not exist. — Expands the treatment of asset pricing to a multi-period economy, deriving prices in a rational expectations equilibrium. — Uses the rational expectations framework to analyse the pricing of forward and futures contracts on assets and derivatives. — Analyses the pricing of bonds given stochastic interest rates, and then uses this methodology to model the drift of forward rates, and as a special case the drift of the forward London Interbank Offer Rate in the LIBOR Market Model.

1. Main Goals The theory of asset pricing has grown markedly more sophisticated in the last two decades, with the application of powerful mathematical tools such as probability theory, stochastic processes and numerical analysis. The main goal of this book is to provide a systematic exposition, with practical appli cations, of the no-arbitrage theory for asset pricing in financial engineering in the framework of a discrete time approach. The book should also serve well as a textbook on financial asset pricing. It should be accessible to a broad audi ence, in particular to practitioners in financial and related industries, as well as to students in MBA or graduate/advanced undergraduate programs in finance, financial engineering, financial econometrics, or financial information science. The no-arbitrage asset pricing theory is based on the simple and well ac cepted principle that financial asset prices are instantly adjusted at each mo ment in time in order not to allow an arbitrage opportunity. Here an arbitrage opportunity is an opportunity to have a portfolio of value aat an initial time lead to a positive terminal value with probability 1 (equivalently, at no risk), with money neither added nor subtracted from the portfolio in rebalancing dur ing the investment period. It is necessary for a portfolio of valueato include a short-sell position as well as a long-buy position of some assets.

The book presents models for the pricing of financial assets such as stocks, bonds, and options. The models are formulated and analyzed using concepts and techniques from mathematics and probability theory. It presents important classic models and some recent 'state-of-the-art' models that outperform the classics.

This book covers the classical results on single-period, discrete-time, and continuous-time models of portfolio choice and asset pricing. It also treats asymmetric information, production models, various proposed explanations for the equity premium puzzle, and topics important for behavioral finance.

Winner of the prestigious Paul A. Samuelson Award for scholarly writing on lifelong financial security, John Cochrane's Asset Pricing now appears in a revised edition that unifies and brings the science of asset pricing up to date for advanced students and professionals. Cochrane traces the pricing of all assets back to a single idea--price equals expected discounted payoff--that captures the macro-economic risks underlying each security's value. By using a single, stochastic discount factor rather than a separate set of tricks for each asset class, Cochrane builds a unified account of modern asset pricing. He presents applications to stocks, bonds, and options. Each model--consumption based, CAPM, multifactor, term structure, and option pricing--is derived as a different specification of the discounted factor. The discount factor framework also leads to a state-space geometry for mean-variance frontiers and asset pricing models. It puts payoffs in different states of nature on the axes rather than mean and variance of return, leading to a new and conveniently linear geometrical representation of asset pricing ideas. Cochrane approaches empirical work with the Generalized Method of Moments, which studies sample average prices and discounted payoffs to determine whether price does equal expected discounted payoff. He translates between the discount factor, GMM, and state-space language and the beta, mean-variance, and regression language common in empirical work and earlier theory. The book also includes a review of recent empirical work on return predictability, value and other puzzles in the cross section, and equity premium puzzles and their resolution. Written to be a summary for academics and professionals as well as a textbook, this book condenses and advances recent scholarship in financial economics.

This book provides a broad introduction of modern asset pricing theory with equal treatments for both discrete-time and continuous-time modeling. Both the no-arbitrage and the general equilibrium approaches of asset pricing theory are treated coherently within the general equilibrium framework.The analyses and coverage are up to date, comprehensive and in-depth. Topics include microeconomic foundation of asset pricing theory, the no-arbitrage principle and fundamental theorem, risk measurement and risk management, sequential portfolio choice, equity premium decomposition, option pricing, bond pricing and term structure of interest rates. The merits and limitations are expounded with respect to allocation and information market efficiency, along with the classical expectations hypothesis concerning the information content of yield curve and bond prices. Efforts are also made towards the resolution of several well-documented puzzles in empirical finance, which include the equity premium puzzle, the risk free rate puzzle, and the money-ness bias phenomenon of Black-Scholes option pricing model.The theory is self-contained and unified in presentation. The inclusion of proofs and derivations to enhance the transparency of the underlying arguments and conditions for the validity of the economic theory makes an ideal advanced textbook or reference book for graduate students specializing in financial economics and quantitative finance. The explanations are detailed enough to capture the interest of those curious readers, and complete enough to provide necessary background material needed to explore further the subject and research literature.

In Asset Pricing and Portfolio Choice Theory, Kerry E. Back at last offers what is at once a welcoming introduction to and a comprehensive overview of asset pricing. Useful as a textbook for graduate students in finance, with extensive exercises and a solutions manual available for professors, the book will also serve as an essential reference for scholars and professionals, as it includes detailed proofs and calculations as section appendices. Topics covered include the classical results on single-period, discrete-time, and continuous-time models, as well as various proposed explanations for the equity premium and risk-free rate puzzles and chapters on heterogeneous beliefs, asymmetric information, non-expected utility preferences, and production models. The book includes numerous exercises designed to provide practice with the concepts and to introduce additional results. Each chapter concludes with a notes and references section that supplies pathways to additional developments in the field.