Work under the money-market risk-neutral measure, with . The zero-coupon bond price is . For this CIR model, write . The Feynman-Kac formula gives
Matching the constant and linear coefficients of yields
For CIR bond pricing, solving this Riccati equation and integrating the scalar equation for , put and . Then
Substitution verifies both equations and their initial conditions. The discounted candidate solves the martingale pricing equation; its boundedness on finite horizons, or Feynman-Kac formula, identifies it with the conditional expectation. The answer is . More generally the same coefficients give .
The CIR model mean reverts to and has volatility , so it remains nonnegative and its fluctuation size depends on the rate level. For positive initial rate, zero is inaccessible if ; below this threshold zero is reachable but the process remains nonnegative. Its stationary law is a gamma distribution, of shape and rate . Explicit affine bond prices and nonnegative rates are useful features. Limitations include exclusion of negative rates, restricted volatility behavior and a single stochastic factor; the time-homogeneous parameter family cannot fit an arbitrary initial term structure exactly.