According to the theoretical prediction, increasing default risk leads to an increasing steepness of the monotonically downward sloping stock option smile. However, extant empirical evidence of this prediction is extremely rare and limited to the slope of the smile at the ATM strike level. The empirical analysis of 23 DAX companies during a 3 year period showed the following: The effect of increasing default risk on the smile can be decomposed into a default-risk-only effect on the one hand and a volatility-only effect on the other. The default-risk-only effect is the impact of rising default risk on the smile if the level of equity volatility is kept constant, while the volatility-only effect designates the impact of increasing equity volatility on the smile, if the level of default risk is kept unchanged. The default-risk-only effect leads to increasing steepness of both wings of the U-shaped smile, whereas the volatility-only effect entails a flattening and right-translation of the smile. Both effects together finally imply a flattening and right-translation of the smile.
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According to the theoretical prediction, increasing default risk leads to an increasing steepness of the monotonically downward sloping stock option smile. However, extant empirical evidence of this prediction is extremely rare and limited to the slope of the smile at the ATM strike level. The empirical analysis of 23 DAX companies during a 3 year period showed the following: The effect of increasing default risk on the smile can be decomposed into a default-risk-only effect on the one hand and...
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