Pricing American Options Under Variance

We derive a form of the partial integro-differential equation (PIDE) for pricing American options under variance gamma (VG) process. We then develop a numerical algorithm to solve for values of American options under variance gamma model. In this study, we compare the exercise boundary and early exercise premia between geo-metric VG law and geometric Brownian motion (GBM). We find that GBM premia are understated and hence we conclude that further work is necessary in developing fast efficient algorithms for solving PIDE’s with a view to calibrating stochastic processes to a surface of American option prices.