Vinzenz Bronzin (1872 in Rovigno – 1970 in Trieste) was an Italian mathematics professor, known today for an early ("rediscovered")

option pricing In finance, a price (premium) is paid or received for purchasing or selling options. This article discusses the calculation of this premium in general. For further detail, see: for discussion of the mathematics; Financial engineering for the imple ...

formula, similar to, and predating, the Black–Scholes 1973 formula; he also provided a formulation of

put–call parity In financial mathematics, put–call parity defines a relationship between the price of a European call option and European put option, both with the identical strike price and expiry, namely that a portfolio of a long call option and a short pu ...

, written up formally only in 1969 by Stoll. Bronzin was born in

Rovigno Rovinj (; it, Rovigno; Istriot: or ; grc, Ρυγίνιον, Rygínion; la, Ruginium) is a city in Croatia situated on the north Adriatic Sea with a population of 14,294 (2011). Located on the western coast of the Istrian peninsula, it is a p ...

(now Rovinj), Istria. He studied engineering at the

Vienna Polytechnic Institute TU Wien (TUW; german: Technische Universität Wien; still known in English as the Vienna University of Technology from 1975–2014) is one of the major universities in Vienna, Austria. The university finds high international and domestic recogn ...

, and then mathematics and pedagogics at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hist ...

. He was made a professor at the Accademia di Commercio e Nautica,

Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into prov ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, in 1900; his focus was "Political and Commercial Arithmetic", which included actuarial science and

probability theory Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expressing it through a set ...

. In 1910 he accepted the position of director. In 1937 he resigned from all of his positions at the Academia at the age of 65. In 1908 Bronzin published hi
''Theorie der Prämiengeschäfte''
(

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

: "Theory of Premium Contracts") discussing a then current type of

option contract An option contract, or simply option, is defined as "a promise which meets the requirements for the formation of a contract and limits the promisor's power to revoke an offer". Option contracts are common in professional sports. An option contrac ...

. Almost every element of modern option pricing can be found in Bronzin’s book; however, like

Louis Bachelier Louis Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Bachelier (; 11 March 1870 – 28 April 1946) was a French mathematician at the turn of the 20th century. He is credited with being the first person to model the stochastic process now called Brownian motion, as part ...

's now famous dissertation (1900), the work seems to have been forgotten shortly after it was published. Bronzin’s "methodological setup is completely different from Bachelier’s,"Wolfgang Hafner, Heinz Zimmermann (2009
Vinzenz Bronzin's Option Pricing Models: Exposition and Appraisal
Springer. pp. 2. at least in terms of the underlying stochastic framework; he takes a much more "pragmatic" approach, directly making assumptions on the share price distribution at maturity, and deriving a "rich set of closed form solutions for the value of options."

References

19th-century Italian mathematicians 20th-century Italian mathematicians 1872 births 1970 deaths Financial economists {{Italy-mathematician-stub

See also

References