On a free boundary problem for an American put option under the CEV process

Abstract

We consider an American put option under the CEV process. This corresponds to a free boundary problem for a PDE. We show that this free bondary satisfies a nonlinear integral equation, and analyze it in the limit of small $\rho$ = $2r/ \sigma^2$, where $r$ is the interest rate and $\sigma$ is the volatility. We use perturbation methods to find that the free boundary behaves differently for five ranges of time to expiry.