How do you derive the linear pricing equations from asset payoffs and current prices in a one-period securities market model?
Conditions
- One-period model with a finite set of states.
- Prices of all traded assets are known today.
- State-contingent payoffs for each asset are known.
- The unknowns are the state prices (Arrow-Debreu security prices).
Reasoning, step by step
- Identify the current price of a traded asset.
- List the asset's payoffs across all possible states.
- Multiply each state payoff by the corresponding state price unknown.
- Sum these weighted payoffs and set the total equal to the asset's current price.
- Repeat this process for every traded asset to form a system of linear equations.
Example
For a risk-free bank account paying 110 in all three states with a current price of 100, the equation is . For Security X paying 220, 55, and 0 across the three states, the equation is .
Common misconceptions
- Omitting scenarios with zero payoff entirely when writing the asset pricing equation; they should still be represented as terms like to maintain the structure.
- Overlooking the risk-free bank account as a priced security, which contributes the first pricing equation in the system.
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The solution for the state price vector is unique because the coefficient matrix of the resulting linear pricing system has a nonzero determinant. A nonzero determinant guarantees that the system of linear equations has exactly one unique solution for the unknown state prices.
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You convert a state price vector into risk-neutral probabilities by multiplying each state price by the gross risk-free factor , where is the per-period risk-free interest rate. This scaling transforms the monetary prices of Arrow-Debreu securities into a valid probability distribution that sums to 1.
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The arbitrage-free price of a European put option is calculated by first determining its state-contingent payoffs, decomposing this payoff vector into the Arrow-Debreu basis, and then taking the dot product of the payoff vector with the state price vector. This relies on the linearity of pricing in a finite-state market.
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The state price vector for this specific three-state market model is . This vector is found by solving the linear system of pricing equations derived from the given asset payoffs and their common current price of 100.
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The bank account contributes 110 in every state because it is a risk-free asset that pays 10% interest per year. Investing 100 today guarantees a return of 110 at time one, regardless of which of the three possible scenarios occurs.
Conditions: The bank account is risk-free.; The bank account pays 10% interest per year.; The initial investment (current price) is 100.; The model is a one-period setting with multiple states.
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