Interplay between dividend rate and business constraints for a financial corporation

We study a model of a corporation which has the possibility to choose various production/business policies with different expected profits and risks. In the model there are restrictions on the dividend distribution rates as well as restrictions on the risk the company can undertake. The objective is to maximize the expected present value of the total dividend distributions. We outline the corresponding Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation, compute explicitly the optimal return function and determine the optimal policy. As a consequence of these results, the way the dividend rate and business constraints affect the optimal policy is revealed. In particular, we show that under certain relationships between the constraints and the exogenous parameters of the random processes that govern the returns, some business activities might be redundant, that is, under the optimal policy they will never be used in any scenario.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/105051604000000909 in the Annals of Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Skorohod problems with nonsmooth boundary conditions

AbstractThe classical Skorohod problem deals with a path-by-path construction of a diffusion process in a region with oblique reflection at the boundary, starting from a standard Brownian motion. We show an existence of a weak solution to this problem if the boundary and the reflection vector-field satisfy the uniform interior cone condition

On the fundamental theorem of asset pricing: random constraints and bang-bang no-arbitrage criteria

The paper generalizes and refines the Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing of Dalang, Morton and Willinger in the following two respects: (a) the result is extended to a model with portfolio constraints; (b) versions of the no-arbitrage criterion based on the bang-bang principle in control theory are developed.no arbitrage criteria, portfolio constraints, supermartingale measures, bang-bang control

Optimal control of risk process in a regime-switching environment

This paper is concerned with cost optimization of an insurance company. The surplus of the insurance company is modeled by a controlled regime switching diffusion, where the regime switching mechanism provides the fluctuations of the random environment. The goal is to find an optimal control that minimizes the total cost up to a stochastic exit time. A weaker sufficient condition than that of (Fleming and Soner 2006, Section V.2) for the continuity of the value function is obtained. Further, the value function is shown to be a viscosity solution of a Hamilton-Jacobian-Bellman equation.Comment: Keywords: Regime switching diffusion, continuity of the value function, exit time control, viscosity solutio

Singular Ergodic Control for Multidimensional Gaussian Processes

A multidimensional Wiener process is controlled by an additive process of bounded variation. A convex nonnegative function measures the cost associated with the position of the state process, and the cost of controlling is proportional to the displacement induced. We minimize a limiting time-average expected (ergodic) criterion. Under reasonable assumptions, we prove that the optimal discounted cost converges to the optimal ergodic cost. Moreover, under some additional conditions there exists a convex Lipschitz continuous function solution to the corresponding Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation which provides an optimal stationary feedback control

Excess of loss reinsurance under joint survival optimality

Explicit expressions for the probability of joint survival up to time x of the cedent and the reinsurer, under an excess of loss reinsurance contract with a limiting and a retention level are obtained, under the reasonably general assumptions of any non-decreasing premium income function, Poisson claim arrivals and continuous claim amounts, modelled by any joint distribution. By stating appropriate optimality problems, we show that these results can be used to set the limiting and the retention levels in an optimal way with respect to the probability of joint survival. Alternatively, for fixed retention and limiting levels, the results yield an optimal split of the total premium income between the two parties in the excess of loss contract. This methodology is illustrated numerically on several examples of independent and dependent claim severities. The latter are modelled by a copula function. The effect of varying its dependence parameter and the marginals, on the solutions of the optimality problems and the joint survival probability, has also been explored

A spatial mixed Poisson framework for combination of excess-of-loss and proportional reinsurance contracts

In this paper a purely theoretical reinsurance model is presented, where the reinsurance contract is assumed to be simultaneously of an excess-of-loss and of a proportional type. The stochastic structure of the set of pairs (claim’s arrival time, claim’s size) is described by a Spatial Mixed Poisson Process. By using an invariance property of the Spatial Mixed Poisson Processes, we estimate the amount that the ceding company obtains in a fixed time interval in force of the reinsurance contract