Malliavin calculus and optimal control of stochastic Volterra equations

Solutions of stochastic Volterra (integral) equations are not Markov processes, and therefore classical methods, like dynamic programming, cannot be used to study optimal control problems for such equations. However, we show that by using {\em Malliavin calculus} it is possible to formulate a modified functional type of {\em maximum principle} suitable for such systems. This principle also applies to situations where the controller has only partial information available to base her decisions upon. We present both a sufficient and a necessary maximum principle of this type, and then we use the results to study some specific examples. In particular, we solve an optimal portfolio problem in a financial market model with memory.Comment: 18 page

Infinite horizon optimal control of forward-backward stochastic differential equations with delay

We consider a problem of optimal control of an infinite horizon system governed by forward-backward stochastic differential equations with delay. Sufficient and necessary maximum principles for optimal control under partial information in infinite horizon are derived. We illustrate our results by an application to a problem of optimal consumption with respect to recursive utility from a cash flow with delay

A Donsker delta functional approach to optimal insider control and applications to finance

We study \emph{optimal insider control problems}, i.e. optimal control problems of stochastic systems where the controller at any time $t$ in addition to knowledge about the history of the system up to this time, also has additional information related to a \emph{future} value of the system. Since this puts the associated controlled systems outside the context of semimartingales, we apply anticipative white noise analysis, including forward integration and Hida-Malliavin calculus to study the problem. Combining this with Donsker delta functionals we transform the insider control problem into a classical (but parametrised) adapted control system, albeit with a non-classical performance functional. We establish a sufficient and a necessary maximum principle for such systems. Then we apply the results to obtain explicit solutions for some optimal insider portfolio problems in financial markets described by It\^ o-L\' evy processes. Finally, in the Appendix we give a brief survey of the concepts and results we need from the theory of white noise, forward integrals and Hida-Malliavin calculus

Optimal insider control of stochastic partial differential equations

We study the problem of optimal inside control of an SPDE (a stochastic evolution equation) driven by a Brownian motion and a Poisson random measure. Our optimal control problem is new in two ways: (i) The controller has access to inside information, i.e. access to information about a future state of the system, (ii) The integro-differential operator of the SPDE might depend on the control. In the first part of the paper, we formulate a sufficient and a necessary maximum principle for this type of control problem, in two cases: (1) When the control is allowed to depend both on time t and on the space variable x. (2) When the control is not allowed to depend on x. In the second part of the paper, we apply the results above to the problem of optimal control of an SDE system when the inside controller has only noisy observations of the state of the system. Using results from nonlinear filtering, we transform this noisy observation SDE inside control problem into a full observation SPDE insider control problem. The results are illustrated by explicit examples

Optimal insider control and semimartingale decompositions under enlargement of filtration

We combine stochastic control methods, white noise analysis and Hida-Malliavin calculus applied to the Donsker delta functional to obtain new representations of semimartingale decompositions under enlargement of filtrations. The results are illustrated by explicit examples

Dynamic robust duality in utility maximization

A celebrated financial application of convex duality theory gives an explicit relation between the following two quantities: (i) The optimal terminal wealth $X^*(T) : = X_{\varphi^*}(T)$ of the problem to maximize the expected $U$-utility of the terminal wealth $X_{\varphi}(T)$ generated by admissible portfolios $\varphi(t), 0 \leq t \leq T$ in a market with the risky asset price process modeled as a semimartingale; (ii) The optimal scenario $\frac{dQ^*}{dP}$ of the dual problem to minimize the expected $V$-value of $\frac{dQ}{dP}$ over a family of equivalent local martingale measures $Q$, where $V$ is the convex conjugate function of the concave function $U$. In this paper we consider markets modeled by It\^o-L\'evy processes. In the first part we use the maximum principle in stochastic control theory to extend the above relation to a \emph{dynamic} relation, valid for all $t \in [0,T]$. We prove in particular that the optimal adjoint process for the primal problem coincides with the optimal density process, and that the optimal adjoint process for the dual problem coincides with the optimal wealth process, $0 \leq t \leq T$. In the terminal time case $t=T$ we recover the classical duality connection above. We get moreover an explicit relation between the optimal portfolio $\varphi^*$ and the optimal measure $Q^*$. We also obtain that the existence of an optimal scenario is equivalent to the replicability of a related $T$-claim. In the second part we present robust (model uncertainty) versions of the optimization problems in (i) and (ii), and we prove a similar dynamic relation between them. In particular, we show how to get from the solution of one of the problems to the other. We illustrate the results with explicit examples

A white noise approach to insider trading

We present a new approach to the optimal portfolio problem for an insider with logarithmic utility. Our method is based on white noise theory, stochastic forward integrals, Hida-Malliavin calculus and the Donsker delta function.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1504.0258

Stochastic differential games with inside information

We study stochastic differential games of jump diffusions, where the players have access to inside information. Our approach is based on anticipative stochastic calculus, white noise, Hida-Malliavin calculus, forward integrals and the Donsker delta functional. We obtain a characterization of Nash equilibria of such games in terms of the corresponding Hamiltonians. This is used to study applications to insider games in finance, specifically optimal insider consumption and optimal insider portfolio under model uncertainty.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1504.0258