Local Volatility - Development

Development

The concept of a local volatility was developed when Bruno Dupire and Emanuel Derman and Iraj Kani noted that there is a unique diffusion process consistent with the risk neutral densities derived from the market prices of European options.

Derman and Kani described and implemented a local volatility function to model instantaneous volatility. They used this function at each node in a binomial options pricing model. The tree successfully produced option valuations consistent with all market prices across strikes and expirations. The Derman-Kani model was thus formulated with discrete time and stock-price steps. The key continuous-time equations used in local volatility models were developed by Bruno Dupire in 1994. Dupire's equation states

\frac{\partial C}{\partial T} = \frac{1}{2} \sigma^2(K,T; S_0)K^2 \frac{\partial^2C}{\partial K^2}-(r - q)K \frac{\partial C}{\partial K} - qC

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