Changing Integration Order in Fourier Pricing of a Call Option
Summary
The document explains a change in integration order used when taking the Fourier transform of a call option price expressed as an integral over terminal log prices. The payoff contributes only when the log price exceeds the log strike, so the original nested integral covers pairs of values where the strike variable is below the terminal log price.
Fubini’s theorem reverses the order by describing the same region with the terminal log price outermost and the strike variable integrated up to it. The answer makes the domain explicit with an indicator for the condition that the terminal log price exceeds the strike variable, then rewrites that condition as the new inner integration bound. This is a useful bookkeeping step in transform-based derivatives pricing. The explanation asserts integrability but does not establish detailed conditions under which Fubini’s theorem applies, and it does not continue to evaluate the resulting transform or discuss numerical pricing.
Key ideas
- The call payoff integral is restricted to terminal log prices above the log strike.
- Reversing the integration order preserves the same two-dimensional integration region.
- An indicator function can express the original inequality before changing the order.
- After the swap, the strike variable ranges up to the terminal log price.
- Applying Fubini’s theorem requires suitable integrability conditions, which the answer does not detail.
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Full text
# Question in "Computational Methods in Finance" by Ali Hirsa - Chapter 2: Derivatives Pricing via Transform Techniques"
# Question in "Computational Methods in Finance" by Ali Hirsa - Chapter 2: Derivatives Pricing via Transform Techniques"
Reference: "Computational Methods in Finance" by Ali Hirsa - Chapter 2: Derivatives Pricing via Transform Techniques" - Page 37*
Background: The author prices call option using the Fourier Transform. Let $X_T$ be time-T price of the underlying security; $f(X_T)$ be pdf of $X_T$ under some e.m.m; $q(x_T)$ be pdf of $x_T=ln(X_T)$; $k=ln(K)$ be the log of the strike price; $C_T(k)$ be price of a strike $K=e^k$ and maturity $T$.
$\Phi(v) = \int_{-\infty}^{\infty}e^{ivx_T}q(x_T)dx_T$ is the characteristic function of the log of the underlying security $x_T$.
$C_T(k)$ can be expressed as: $C_T(k)=CE[(X_T-K)^{+}]=C\int_{K}^{\infty}(X_T-K)f(X_T)dX_T=C\int_{k}^{\infty}(e^{x_T}-e^{k})q(x_T)dx_T$ where $C$ is constant coefficient which depends on the e.m.m. chosen.
Then define $\Psi_T(v)=\int_{-\infty}^{\infty}e^{ivk}C_T(k)dx_T$ as the Fourier transform of $C_T(k)$.
Question: The author continues to derive an explicit form of $\Psi_T(v)$ which goes as follows: $\Psi_T(v) = \int_{-\infty}^{\infty}e^{ivk}(C\int_{k}^{\infty}(e^{x}-e^{k})q(x)dx)dk = C\int_{-\infty}^{\infty}\int_{-\infty}^{x}e^{ivk}(e^{x}-e^{k})q(x)dkdx$. The latter equality seems to be derived from Fubini's Theorem, but I could not understand the change to $\int_{-\infty}^{x}$ from $\int_{k}^{\infty}$ in the previous equation when the double integral places the $e^{ivk}$ inside and swapped the order of integration.
Could someone kindly explain how Fubini's theorem is applied here?
Thanks a lot.
## Answer by ocstl (score 3)
https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/22936
Fubini's theorem is only used to reverse the order of integration. We have:
$\int_{-\infty}^{\infty}{e^{i\nu k} \left( C \int_k^{\infty} \left( e^x - e^k \right) q(x) dx \right) dk} = \int_{-\infty}^{\infty}{\int_k^{\infty}{C e^{i\nu k} \left( e^x - e^k \right) q(x) dx} dk} $
Now, let $f(x, k) = C e^{i\nu k} \left( e^x - e^k \right) q(x)$,
$\int_{-\infty}^{\infty}{\int_k^{\infty}{f(x, k) dx} dk} = \int_{-\infty}^{\infty}{\int_{-\infty}^{\infty}{f(x, k) \mathbb{I}_{x > k} dx} dk}$
Switching the order of integration (and using the fact that the indicator function will not affect the integrability of $f(x, k)$:
$\int_{- \infty}^{\infty}{\int_{-\infty}^{\infty}{f(x, k) \mathbb{I}_{x > k} dk} dx} = \int_{-\infty}^{\infty}{\int_{-\infty}^{\infty}{f(x, k) \mathbb{I}_{k < x} dk} dx} \\ = \int_{-\infty}^{\infty}{\int_{-\infty}^{x}{f(x, k) dk} dx}\\ =\int_{-\infty}^{\infty}{\int_{-\infty}^{x}{C e^{i\nu k} \left( e^x - e^k \right) q(x) dk} dx}$Shown in full with attribution under the source's licence. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 (Stack Exchange)
This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.