Calibration of the Ross Recovery Theorem to Real-world Data, and Tests of its Practical Value

Abstract

The Ross Recovery Theorem [1] challenges the commonly held thought that derivative prices do not contain useful predictive information about the distribution of financial variables (such as an equity index). The theorem recovers, under certain hypotheses on the character of the market, the subjective probability distribution of an equity index from current derivative prices. In this paper, building on the method of Backwell [2] for extracting state prices from option prices, we develop a strategy for combining option data with the Recovery Theorem to estimate the subjective distribution. Using real-world data, we then investigate whether the Recovery Theorem yields predictive information and has practical value, concluding that the answer might be no.