Abstract

Mark B. Garman is a professor of finance and management science in the Schools of Business Administration at Berkeley. His current area of specialization is capital market theory, where he is particularly interested in arbitrage--whether such markets offer a "free lunch." Here he is interviewed about the Berkeley Options Data Base, which he and Mark Rubinstein have recently developed. The topics include: What is the Berkeley Options Data Base? Why not just use the MDF data itself? Just how big is the Berkeley Options Data Base? Why does anyone need so much data? Why not just use the options data reported in financial newspapers? Exactly what does a quotation or transaction record look like? How were these records created? What is the procedure for accessing the data base? What uses do you see for the data?