The potential approach to the term structure of interest rates; theory and application

Abstract

The main aim of this text is a new approach to the term structure of interest rates called the potential approach. The key element of this approach is to view the state-price density (a positive supermartingale) as the modelling primitive and to express the prices of derivaties directly in terms of this. In this framework prices of zero-bonds are expressed in terms of conditional expectations, which leads us to the concept of modeling with Markov processes. First the theory is presented and then used in a various number of simulations using a Markov process in continuous time with finite state-space and continuous state-space.<br />

The main aim of this text is a new approach to the term structure of interest rates called the potential approach. The key element of this approach is to view the state-price density (a positive supermartingale) as the modelling primitive and to express the prices of derivaties directly in terms of this. In this framework prices of zero-bonds are expressed in terms of conditional expectations, which leads us to the concept of modeling with Markov processes. First the theory is presented and then used in a various number of simulations using a Markov process in continuous time with finite state-space and continuous state-space.