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We introduce a forward scheme to simulate backward SDEs. Compared
to existing schemes, we avoid high order nestings of conditional
expectations backwards in time. In this way the error, when
approximating the conditional expectation, in dependence of the
time partition is significantly reduced. Besides this generic
result, we present an implementable algorithm and provide an error
analysis for it. Finally, we demonstrate the strength of the new
algorithm by solving some financial problems numerically.
We analyse financial market models in which agents form their demand for an asset on
the basis of their forecasts of future prices and where their forecasting rules may change
over time, as a result of the influence of other traders. Agents will switch from one rule to
another stochastically, and the price and profits process will reflect these switches. Among
the possible rules are “chartist” or extrapolatory rules. Prices can exhibit transient behaviour
when chartists predominate. However, if the probability that an agent will switch to being a
“chartist” is not too high then the process does not explode. There are occasional bubbles
but they inevitably burst. In fact, we prove that the limit distribution of the price process
exists and is unique. This limit distribution may be thought of as the appropriate equilibrium
notion for such markets. A number of characteristics of financial time series can be captured
by this sort of model. In particular, the presence of chartists fattens the tails of the stationary
distribution.
In the first part of the article, we characterize distribution-invariant risk measures with convex
acceptance and rejection sets on the level of distributions. It is shown that these risk measures
are closely related to utility-based shortfall risk.
In the second part of the paper, we provide an axiomatic characterization for distribution-invariant
dynamic risk measures of terminal payments. We prove a representation theorem and
investigate the relation to static risk measures. A key insight of the paper is that dynamic consistency
and the notion of "measure convex sets of probability measures" are intimately related.
This result implies that under weak conditions dynamically consistent dynamic risk measures can
be represented by static utility-based shortfall risk.
We derive a continuous time approximation of the evolutionary market selection model of Blume &
Easley (1992). Conditions on the payoff structure of the assets are identified that guarantee convergence. We show that the continuous
time approximation equals the solution of an integral equation
in a random environment. For constant asset returns, the integral equation reduces to an autonomous
ordinary differential equation. We analyze its long-run asymptotic behavior using techniques related to
Lyapunov functions, and compare our results to the benchmark of profit-maximizing investors.
The subject of the present paper is a simplified model for a symmetric bistable system with memory
or delay, the reference model, which in the presence of noise exhibits a phenomenon similar to what
is known as stochastic resonance. The reference model is given by a one dimensional parametrized
stochastic differential equation with point delay, basic properties whereof we check.
With a view to capturing the effective dynamics and, in particular, the resonance-like behavior of
the reference model we construct a simplified or reduced model, the two state model, first in discrete
time, then in the limit of discrete time tending to continuous time. The main advantage of the
reduced model is that it enables us to explicitly calculate the distribution of residence times which
in turn can be used to characterize the phenomenon of noise-induced resonance.
Drawing on what has been proposed in the physics literature, we outline a heuristic method for
establishing the link between the two state model and the reference model. The resonance characteristics
developed for the reduced model can thus be applied to the original model.
We consider potential type dynamical systems in finite dimensions with two meta-stable states.
They are subject to two sources of perturbation: a slow external periodic perturbation of period T
and a small Gaussian random perturbation of intensity ", and therefore mathematically described as
weakly time inhomogeneous diffusion processes. A system is in stochastic resonance provided the small
noisy perturbation is tuned in such a way that its random trajectories follow the exterior periodic
motion in an optimal fashion, i.e. for some optimal intensity "(T). The physicists' favorite measures
of quality of periodic tuning -- and thus stochastic resonance -- such as spectral power amplification or
signal-to-noise ratio have proven to be defective. They are not robust w.r.t. effective model reduction,
i.e. for the passage to a simplified finite state Markov chain model reducing the dynamics to a pure
jumping between the meta-stable states of the original system. An entirely probabilistic notion of
stochastic resonance based on the transition dynamics between the domains of attraction of the meta-
stable states -- and thus failing to suffer from this robustness defect -- was proposed before in the
context of one-dimensional discusions. It is investigated for higher dimensional systems here, by using
extensions and refinements of the Freidlin-Wentzell theory of large deviations for time homogeneous
diffusions. Large deviation principles developed for weakly time inhomogeneous diffusions prove to be
key tools for a treatment of the problem of diffusion exit from a domain and thus for the approach of
stochastic resonance via transition probabilities between meta-stable sets.
In Kolodko & Schoenmakers (2004) and Bender & Schoenmakers (2004) a policy iteration was introduced which allows to achieve tight lower approximations of the price for early exercise options via a nested Monte-Carlo simulation in a Markovian setting. In this paper we enhance the algorithm by a scenario selection method. It is demonstrated by numerical examples that the scenario selection can significantly reduce the number of actually performed inner simulations, and thus can heavily speed up the method (up to factor 10 in some examples). Moreover, it is shown that the modified algorithm retains the desirable properties of the original one such as the monotone improvement property, termination after a finite number of iteration steps, and numerical stability.
We propose a valuation method for callable structures in a multi-factor Libor model which are path-dependent in the sense that, after calling, one receives a sequence of cash-flows in the future, instead of a well specified cash-flow at the calling date. The method is based on a Monte Carlo procedure for standard Bermudans recently developed in Kolodko & Schoenmakers (2004), and is applied to the cancelable snowball interest rate swap. The proposed procedure is quite generic, straightforward to implement, and can be easily adapted to other related path-dependent products.
We apply theoretical results of S. Peng on supersolutions for BS-DEs
to the problem of finding optimal superhedging strategies in a
Black-Scholes market under constraints. Constraints may be imposed
simultaneously on wealth process and portfolio. They may be nonconvex,
time-dependent, and random. Constraints on the portfolio may
e.g. be formulated in terms of the amount of money invested, the portfolio
proportion, or the number of shares held.