We study various properties of a dynamic convex risk measure for bounded random variables which describe the discounted terminal values of financial positions. In particular we characterize time-consistency by a joint supermartingale property of the risk measure and its penalty function. Moreover we discuss the limit behavior of the risk measure in terms of asymptotic safety and of asymptotic precision, a property which may be viewed as a non-linear analogue of martingale convergence. These results are illustrated by the entropic dynamic risk measure.
We introduce a systematic approach to the problem of maximizing the robust
utility of the terminal wealth of an admissible strategy in a general complete market
model, where the robust utility functional is defined by a set Q of probability measures.
Our main result shows that this problem can be reduced to determining a “least favorable”
measure Q0 2 Q, which is universal in the sense that it does not depend on the
particular utility function. The robust problem is thus equivalent to a standard utility
maximization problem with respect to the “subjective” probability measure Q0. By using
the Huber-Strassen theorem from robust statistics, it is shown that Q0 always exists if Q
is the core of a 2-alternating upper probability. We also discuss the problem of robust
utility maximization with uncertain drift in a Black-Scholes market and the case of “weak
information” as studied by Baudoin (2002).
Motivated by optimal investment problems in mathematical finance, we consider
a variational problem of Neyman-Pearson type for law-invariant robust utility functionals
and convex risk measures. Explicit solutions are found for quantile-based coherent
risk measures and related utility functionals. Typically, these solutions exhibit a critical
phenomenon: If the capital constraint is below some critical value, then the solution will
coincide with a classical solution; above this critical value, the solution is a superposition
of a classical solution and a less risky or even risk-free investment. For general risk measures
and utility functionals, it is shown that there exists a solution that can be written
as a deterministic increasing function of the price density.