IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfinec/v121y2016i2p231-253.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Capital structure effects on the prices of equity call options

Author

Listed:
  • Geske, Robert
  • Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar
  • Zhou, Yi

Abstract

We examine whether values of equity options traded on individual firms are sensitive to the firm’s capital structure. We estimate the compound option (CO) model, which views equity as an option on the firm. Compared with the Black-Scholes model, the CO model with a term structure of volatility (TSV) reduces pricing errors by 20% on average. The compound option effect is particularly strong for highly levered firms and long-term options, in which the pricing improvement is up to 70% of the Black-Scholes error. Without a TSV, the CO model reduces pricing errors of in-the-money options by 12.74% on average and for out-of-the-money by 9.22%. We show that the CO model implies a market value of firm leverage and allows imputation of the firm’s implied volatility, both of which have potential applications in corporate finance.

Suggested Citation

  • Geske, Robert & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar & Zhou, Yi, 2016. "Capital structure effects on the prices of equity call options," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(2), pages 231-253.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:121:y:2016:i:2:p:231-253
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2016.03.009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304405X16300484
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jfineco.2016.03.009?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jin-Chuan Duan & Jason Wei, 2009. "Systematic Risk and the Price Structure of Individual Equity Options," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(5), pages 1981-2006, May.
    2. 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.
    3. Toft, Klaus Bjerre & Prucyk, Brian, 1997. "Options on Leveraged Equity: Theory and Empirical Tests," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1151-1180, July.
    4. 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.
    5. Rubinstein, Mark, 1985. "Nonparametric Tests of Alternative Option Pricing Models Using All Reported Trades and Quotes on the 30 Most Active CBOE Option Classes from August 23, 1976 through August 31, 1978," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(2), pages 455-480, June.
    6. Stein, Elias M & Stein, Jeremy C, 1991. "Stock Price Distributions with Stochastic Volatility: An Analytic Approach," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 4(4), pages 727-752.
    7. 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.
    8. Robert C. Merton, 2005. "Theory of rational option pricing," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Sudipto Bhattacharya & George M Constantinides (ed.), Theory Of Valuation, chapter 8, pages 229-288, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Frederick R. Macaulay, 1938. "Some Theoretical Problems Suggested by the Movements of Interest Rates, Bond Yields and Stock Prices in the United States since 1856," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number maca38-1.
    10. 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.
    11. Tim Bollerslev & Julia Litvinova & George Tauchen, 2006. "Leverage and Volatility Feedback Effects in High-Frequency Data," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(3), pages 353-384.
    12. Geske, Robert, 1979. "The valuation of compound options," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 63-81, March.
    13. Wiggins, James B., 1987. "Option values under stochastic volatility: Theory and empirical estimates," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 351-372, December.
    14. Merton, Robert C, 1974. "On the Pricing of Corporate Debt: The Risk Structure of Interest Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 29(2), pages 449-470, May.
    15. Young Ho Eom, 2004. "Structural Models of Corporate Bond Pricing: An Empirical Analysis," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 17(2), pages 499-544.
    16. Heston, Steven L & Nandi, Saikat, 2000. "A Closed-Form GARCH Option Valuation Model," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 13(3), pages 585-625.
    17. Geske, Robert, 1977. "The Valuation of Corporate Liabilities as Compound Options," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(4), pages 541-552, November.
    18. 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.
    19. Christie, Andrew A., 1982. "The stochastic behavior of common stock variances : Value, leverage and interest rate effects," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 407-432, December.
    20. Black, Fischer & Scholes, Myron S, 1973. "The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 637-654, May-June.
    21. Scott, Louis O., 1987. "Option Pricing when the Variance Changes Randomly: Theory, Estimation, and an Application," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(4), pages 419-438, December.
    22. Bates, David S., 2000. "Post-'87 crash fears in the S&P 500 futures option market," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 181-238.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hariem Abdullah & Turgut Tursoy, 2021. "Capital structure and firm performance: evidence of Germany under IFRS adoption," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 379-398, February.
    2. Bai, Jennie & Goldstein, Robert S. & Yang, Fan, 2019. "The leverage effect and the basket-index put spread," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(1), pages 186-205.
    3. Michael B. Imerman, 0. "When enough is not enough: bank capital and the Too-Big-To-Fail subsidy," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-36.
    4. Alex Backwell & Thomas A. McWalter & Peter H. Ritchken, 2022. "On buybacks, dilutions, dividends, and the pricing of stock‐based claims," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 273-308, January.
    5. Chen, Ding & Guo, Biao & Zhou, Guofu, 2023. "Firm fundamentals and the cross-section of implied volatility shapes," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    6. Robert F. Engle & Emil N. Siriwardane, 2018. "Structural GARCH: The Volatility-Leverage Connection," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(2), pages 449-492.
    7. A. W. Rathgeber & J. Stadler & S. Stöckl, 2021. "The impact of the leverage effect on the implied volatility smile: evidence for the German option market," Review of Derivatives Research, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 95-133, July.
    8. Davide E Avino & Enrique Salvador, 2024. "Contingent Claims and Hedging of Credit Risk with Equity Options," The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(2), pages 310-348.
    9. Malek Ben-Abdellatif & Hatem Ben-Ameur & Rim Chérif & Bruno Rémillard, 2024. "A two-factor structural model for valuing corporate securities," Review of Derivatives Research, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 203-225, July.
    10. Michael B. Imerman, 2020. "When enough is not enough: bank capital and the Too-Big-To-Fail subsidy," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 55(4), pages 1371-1406, November.
    11. Borochin, Paul & Wu, Zekun & Zhao, Yanhui, 2021. "The effect of option-implied skewness on delta- and vega-hedged option returns," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    12. Huang, Jiexiang & Roberts, Helen & Tan, Eric K.M., 2024. "Media uncertainty and risk-taking," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    13. Sobhesh Kumar Agarwalla & Sumit Saurav & Jayanth R. Varma, 2022. "Lottery and bubble stocks and the cross‐section of option‐implied tail risks," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(2), pages 231-249, February.
    14. Abdullah, Hariem & Tursoy, Turgut, 2021. "Capital structure and firm performance: a panel causality test," MPRA Paper 105871, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Kwangil Bae, 2019. "Valuation and applications of compound basket options," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(6), pages 704-720, June.

    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. Lim, Terence & Lo, Andrew W. & Merton, Robert C. & Scholes, Myron S., 2006. "The Derivatives Sourcebook," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 1(5–6), pages 365-572, April.
    2. Gonçalo Faria & João Correia-da-Silva, 2014. "A closed-form solution for options with ambiguity about stochastic volatility," Review of Derivatives Research, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 125-159, July.
    3. Chen, An-Sing & Leung, Mark T., 2005. "Modeling time series information into option prices: An empirical evaluation of statistical projection and GARCH option pricing model," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(12), pages 2947-2969, December.
    4. Siddiqi, Hammad, 2014. "Analogy Making and the Structure of Implied Volatility Skew," MPRA Paper 60921, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. 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.
    6. Siddiqi, Hammad, 2015. "Anchoring Heuristic in Option Pricing," MPRA Paper 63218, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Rombouts, Jeroen V.K. & Stentoft, Lars, 2015. "Option pricing with asymmetric heteroskedastic normal mixture models," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 635-650.
    8. 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.
    9. Gang Li & Chu Zhang, 2010. "On the Number of State Variables in Options Pricing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(11), pages 2058-2075, November.
    10. Stentoft, Lars, 2011. "American option pricing with discrete and continuous time models: An empirical comparison," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 880-902.
    11. Bates, David S., 2003. "Empirical option pricing: a retrospection," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 116(1-2), pages 387-404.
    12. Hu, May & Park, Jason, 2019. "Valuation of collateralized debt obligations: An equilibrium model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 119-135.
    13. McWalter, Thomas A. & Ritchken, Peter H., 2022. "On stock-based loans," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    14. Siddiqi, Hammad, 2014. "Anchoring Heuristic in Option Prices," MPRA Paper 66018, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Jul 2015.
    15. Siddiqi, Hammad, 2015. "Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic in Option Pricing," MPRA Paper 68595, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Siddiqi, Hammad, 2014. "Analogy Making and the Structure of Implied Volatility Skew," Risk and Sustainable Management Group Working Papers 187407, University of Queensland, School of Economics.
    17. Henri Bertholon & Alain Monfort & Fulvio Pegoraro, 2006. "Pricing and Inference with Mixtures of Conditionally Normal Processes," Working Papers 2006-28, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    18. Chiang, Min-Hsien & Huang, Hsin-Yi, 2011. "Stock market momentum, business conditions, and GARCH option pricing models," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 488-505, June.
    19. Ghysels, E. & Harvey, A. & Renault, E., 1995. "Stochastic Volatility," Papers 95.400, Toulouse - GREMAQ.
    20. Kozarski, R., 2013. "Pricing and hedging in the VIX derivative market," Other publications TiSEM 221fefe0-241e-4914-b6bd-c, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Derivatives; Options; Leverage; Stochastic volatility;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:eee:jfinec:v:121:y:2016:i:2:p:231-253. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505576 .

    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.