Crash of '87: Was It Expected? The Evidence from Options Markets (ICPSR 1187)

Version Date: Apr 30, 1999

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Principal Investigator(s):
David S. Bates, University of Pennsylvania. Wharton School

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR01187.v1

Version V1

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Summary

Efforts to explain why stock markets worldwide crashed in October 1987 have been frustrated by the scarcity of major economic developments occurring around that time that could have precipitated the crashes. It is conceivable that the United States stock market crashed because it was expected to crash. To test this hypothesis, transaction prices of Standard and Poor's 500 futures options over the 1985-1987 period were examined for evidence prior to October 1987 of expectations of an impending crash. It was found that out-of-the-money puts became unusually expensive during the year leading up to the crash. A model was therefore derived for pricing American options on jump-diffusion processes with systematic jump risk. The jump-diffusion parameters implicit in option prices indicate that a crash was expected and that implicit distributions were negatively skewed for the October 1986-August 1987 period. Neither approach, however, points to any strong crash fears in the two months prior to the crash.

Citation

Bates, David S. Crash of ’87:  Was It Expected?  The Evidence from Options Markets. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1999-04-30. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR01187.v1

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Funding

National Science Foundation

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

1985 -- 1987

Data Collection Notes

  1. The files are SP8501.DAT-SP8712.DAT, SPLINE85.DAT-SPLINE87.DAT, SPNOON.PRN, SKEWPREM.PRN, SPPARAM.PRN, SPCP.PRN, and SPTEST.PRN. There are readme files from the original diskettes that describe the contents of the data files.

  2. These data are part of ICPSR's Publication-Related Archive and are distributed exactly as they arrived from the data depositor. ICPSR has not checked or processed this material. Users should consult the investigator(s) if further information is desired.

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Original Release Date

1999-04-30

Version History

2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:
  • Bates, David S. Crash of '87: Was It Expected? The Evidence from Options Markets. ICPSR01187-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1999-04-30. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR01187.v1
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Notes

  • These data are flagged as replication datasets and are distributed exactly as they arrived from the data depositor. ICPSR has not checked or processed this material. Users should consult the investigator(s) if further information is desired.

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.