On exceedance times for some processes with dependent increments

Abstract

Let ${Z_n}_{n\ge 0}$ be a random walk with a negative drift and i.i.d. increments with heavy-tailed distribution and let $M=\sup_{n\ge 0}Z_n$ be its supremum. Asmussen & Kl{\"u}ppelberg (1996) considered the behavior of the random walk given that $M>x$, for $x$ large, and obtained a limit theorem, as $x\to\infty$, for the distribution of the quadruple that includes the time \rtreg=\rtreg(x) to exceed level $x$, position Z_{\rtreg} at this time, position Z_{\rtreg-1} at the prior time, and the trajectory up to it (similar results were obtained for the Cram\'er-Lundberg insurance risk process). We obtain here several extensions of this result to various regenerative-type models and, in particular, to the case of a random walk with dependent increments. Particular attention is given to describing the limiting conditional behavior of $\tau$. The class of models include Markov-modulated models as particular cases. We also study fluid models, the Bj{\"o}rk-Grandell risk process, give examples where the order of $\tau$ is genuinely different from the random walk case, and discuss which growth rates are possible. Our proofs are purely probabilistic and are based on results and ideas from Asmussen, Schmidli & Schmidt (1999), Foss & Zachary (2002), and Foss, Konstantopoulos & Zachary (2007).Comment: 17 page