Liquidity risk and optimal dividend/investment strategies

In this paper, we study the problem of determining an optimal control on the dividend and investment policy of a firm operating under uncertain environment and risk constraints. We allow the company to make investment decisions by acquiring or selling producing assets whose value is governed by a stochastic process. The firm may face liquidity costs when it decides to buy or sell assets. We formulate this problem as a multi-dimensional mixed singular and multi-switching control problem and use a viscosity solution approach. We numerically compute our optimal strategies and enrich our studies with numerical results and illustrations.     

Portfolio selection with divisible and indivisible assets: Mathematical algorithm and economic analysis

We extend the classic mean-variance framework to a broad class of investment decisions under risk where investors select optimal portfolios of risky assets that include perfectly divisible as well as perfectly indivisible assets. We develop an algorithm for solving the associated mixed-integer nonlinear program and report on the results of a computational study. We then study the mean-variance structure of the investment frontier facing an individual investor in the presence of investment opportunities in both risky divisible and indivisible assets. Finally, we analyze the economic implications of the presence of investment opportunities in risky indivisible assets on the investor’s investment strategy and on his risk evaluation.     

考虑交易费用和债务的再保险和投资问题

该文考虑了保险公司的再保险和投资在多种风险资产中的策略问题. 假设保险公司本身有着一定的债务, 债务的多少服从线性扩散方程. 保险公司可以通过再保险和将再保险之后的剩余资产投资在m种风险资产和一种无风险资产中降低其风险. 资产中风险资产的价格波动服从几何布朗运动, 其债务多少的演化也是依据布朗运动而上下波动. 该文考虑了风险资产与债务之间的相互关系, 考虑了在进行风险投资时的交易费用, 并且利用HJB方程求得保险公司的最大最终资产的预期指数效用, 给出了相应的最优价值函数和最优策略的数值解.     

Optimal Investment in a Levy Market

In this paper we consider the optimal investment problem in a market where the stock price process is modeled by a geometric Levy process (taking into account jumps). Except for the geometric Brownian model and the geometric Poissonian model, the resulting models are incomplete and there are many equivalent martingale measures. However, the model can be completed by the so-called power-jump assets. By doing this we allow investment in these new assets and we can try to maximize the expected utility of these portfolios. As particular cases we obtain the optimal portfolios based in stocks and bonds, showing that the new assets are superfluous for certain martingale measures that depend on the utility function we use.     

A game-theoretic analysis of information sharing and security investment for complementary firms

This paper investigates information sharing and security investments by two firms provided that their information assets are complementary in the sense that their combined information assets are of significant value, whereas the information asset of a single firm is no value to an attacker. In particular, assuming that each firm chooses its security investment and information sharing individually, we obtain some insights about the optimal choices for the firms and the attacker, which form sharp comparisons with those derived from common (substitutive) firms. We further analyse the effect of a social planner on social total costs by assuming that it can control security investments, information sharing and both of them respectively. We demonstrate that an increase in intervention by the social planner may not necessarily be preferable.     

Revisiting corporate growth options in the presence of state-dependent cashflow risk

Given a non-trivial market price of risk, we study the impact of state-dependent cashflow risk on the optimal investment policy and on the ensuing value of an unlevered firm that holds the option of scaling up cashflows from its assets in place upon incurring an irreversible cost. The firm’s investment decision and value are studied as a function of the market price of risk and of the degree of state dependence in cashflow risk.     

THE TRANSFORMATION OF LANDSCAPE: MODELING POLICY AND SOCIAL IMPACTS ON THE AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPE OF LESVOS

ABSTRACT. The term landscape is more and more used as an “umbrella‘ concept, covering a series of cultural, productive and ecological processes. In order to uncover mechanisms, monitor transformations and predict changes, a complicated set of interacting factors has to be taken into account. This paper presents a model for estimating social and policy impacts on agricultural landscapes, based on the assumption that agricultural landscapes are shaped at” macro “(landscape) level by” micro “interventions at farm level. The model consists of three parts: an” ecological processes “part, which deals with processes that shape the ecological and aesthetic value of a landscape, a” population dynamics “part, which examines farmer population dynamics and a” policy impact “part, which deals with direct or indirect impacts on farming systems and farmer dynamics and refers to CAP Rural Development Measures. The model is applied for the olive and graze land agricultural landscapes of Lesvos (Greece). Results, apart from revealing landscape change patterns; help to illustrate some mechanisms behind this change and indicate that Rural Development Measures are inherent with minor but important malfunctions that cannot lead to sustainable landscape management and rural development in the area.     

Optimal consumption and investment strategies with liquidity risk and lifetime uncertainty for Markov regime-switching jump diffusion models

In this paper, we consider the optimal consumption and investment strategies for households throughout their lifetime. Risks such as the illiquidity of assets, abrupt changes of market states, and lifetime uncertainty are considered. Taking the effects of heritage into account, investors are willing to limit their current consumption in exchange for greater wealth at their death, because they can take advantage of the higher expected returns of illiquid assets. Further, we model the liquidity risks in an illiquid market state by introducing frozen periods with uncertain lengths, during which investors cannot continuously rebalance their portfolios between different types of assets. In liquid market, investors can continuously remix their investment portfolios. In addition, a Markov regime-switching process is introduced to describe the changes in the market’s states. Jumps, classified as either moderate or severe, are jointly investigated with liquidity risks. Explicit forms of the optimal consumption and investment strategies are developed using the dynamic programming principle. Markov chain approximation methods are adopted to obtain the value function. Numerical examples demonstrate that the liquidity of assets and market states have significant effects on optimal consumption and investment strategies in various scenarios.     

Multicriteria and multiperiod programming for scenario analysis in Guadalquivir river irrigated farming

A multiperiod model based upon a multicriteria objective function has been developed for a representative area of the Guadalquivir Valley, dividing the irrigated area into homogeneous types of farming as identified by cluster analysis. The model was applied to different future scenarios with a time horizon of 10 years and several different farming environments. A set of eight sustainability indicators has been evaluated for the model. The results show that the evolution of crops over time is closely related to the political environment regarding the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the application of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). Methodological innovation has included the successful simultaneous introduction of MCDM and multiperiod programming techniques applied to agriculture and scenario development.     

Mean–variance asset–liability management: Cointegrated assets and insurance liability

The cointegration of major financial markets around the globe is well evidenced with strong empirical support. This paper considers the continuous-time mean–variance (MV) asset–liability management (ALM) problem for an insurer investing in an incomplete financial market with cointegrated assets. The number of trading assets is allowed to be less than the number of Brownian motions spanning the market. The insurer also faces the risk of paying uncertain insurance claims during the investment period. We assume that the cointegration market follows the diffusion limit of the error-correction model for cointegrated time series. Using the Markowitz (1952) MV portfolio criterion, we consider the insurer’s problem of minimizing variance in the terminal wealth, given an expected terminal wealth subject to interim random liability payments following a compound Poisson process. We generalize the technique developed by Lim (2005) to tackle this problem. The particular structure of cointegration enables us to solve the ALM problem completely in the sense that the solutions of the continuous-time portfolio policy and efficient frontier are obtained as explicit and closed-form formulas.     

个人投资与消费模型的期望效用最大化

研究了具有初始财富的投资者如何最大化终端资产和消费的期望效用,首先通过交易费用函数建立带交易费的连续时间投资与消费模型,然后运用鞅分析和对偶理论证明了：在有效市场中,如果投资者积极交易,则只会降低终端财富的期望值,并得到了最优投资消费组合过程和终端资产.     

Multi-stage IT project evaluation: The flexibility value obtained by implementing and resolving Berk, Green and Naik (2004) model

In this paper, we evaluate a multi-stage information technology investment project, by implementing and resolving Berk, Green and Naik’s (2004) model, which takes into account specific features of IT projects and considers the real option to suspend investment at each stage. We present a particular case of the model where the project value is the solution of an optimal control problem with a single state variable. In this case, the model is more intuitive and tractable. The case study confirms the practical potential of the model and highlights the importance of the real-option approach compared to classical discounted cash flow techniques in the valuation of IT projects.     

Investment policies and reinsurance for pension funds

A pension fund typically faces two sorts of risk. In addition to the actuarial risk, there is an investment risk stemming from the stochastic nature of the rate of return on reserves. These risks depend on the level of reinsurance and the investment policy chosen by the pension fund. The application of Borch's theorem and a result on ‘mutual funds’ make it possible for the optimal level of reinsurance and the optimal investment policy to be determined simulataneously. In particular, it turns out that a low level of reinsurance should never be combined with a cautious investment policy. In addition the paper shows how elements of capital and risk-theory can be combined in one model.     

Optimal portfolios: new variations of an old theme

We survey some recent developments in the area of continuous-time portfolio optimization. These will include the use of options and of defaultable assets as investment classes and the presentation of a worst-case investment approach that takes the possibility of stock market crashes into account.      

Optimal investment strategies and risk measures in defined contribution pension schemes

In this paper, we derive a formula for the optimal investment allocation (derived from a dynamic programming approach) in a defined contribution (DC) pension scheme whose fund is invested in n assets. We then analyse the particular case of n=2 (where we consider the presence in the market of a high-risk and a low-risk asset whose returns are correlated) and study the investment allocation and the downside risk faced by the retiring member of the DC scheme, where optimal investment strategies have been adopted. The behaviour of the optimal investment strategy is analysed when changing the disutility function and the correlation between the assets. Three different risk measures are considered in analysing the final net replacement ratios achieved by the member: the probability of failing the target, the mean shortfall and a value at risk (VaR) measure. The replacement ratios encompass the financial and annuitisation risks faced by the retiree. We consider the relationship between the risk aversion of the member and these different risk measures in order to understand better the choices confronting different categories of scheme member. We also consider the sensitivity of the results to the level of the correlation coefficient.     

通货膨胀时期的投资策略分析

目前,各个国家面临着不同程度的通贷膨胀.在此情况下,如何规避通货膨胀所带来的财富稀释是现阶段所有投资人追求的目标.本文从投资产品的价格出发给出了两阶段均值-方差投资问题的最优解.分析了交易费用、风险资产的期望回报率以及波动率对投资策略的影响.最后,我们依据实际算例分析为投资者提供指导,并且给出了政策建议.     

Optimal dynamic asset allocation of pension fund in mortality and salary risks framework

In this paper, we consider the optimal dynamic asset allocation of pension fund with mortality risk and salary risk. The managers of the pension fund try to find the optimal investment policy (optimal asset allocation) to maximize the expected utility of terminal wealth. The market is a combination of financial market and insurance market. The financial market consists of three assets: cashes with stochastic interest rate, stocks and rolling bonds, while the insurance market consists of mortality risk and salary risk. These two non-hedging risks cause incompleteness of the market. By martingale method and dynamic programming principle we first derive the approximate optimal investment policy to overcome the difficulty, then investigate the efficiency of the approximation. Finally, we solve an optimal assets liabilities management(ALM) problem with mortality risk and salary risk under CRRA utility, and reveal the influence of these two risks on the optimal investment policy by numerical illustration.     

Optimal proportional reinsurance and investment with transaction costs, I: Maximizing the terminal wealth

We consider a problem of optimal reinsurance and investment with multiple risky assets for an insurance company whose surplus is governed by a linear diffusion. The insurance company’s risk can be reduced through reinsurance, while in addition the company invests its surplus in a financial market with one risk-free asset and n risky assets. In this paper, we consider the transaction costs when investing in the risky assets. Also, we use Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR) to control the whole risk. We consider the optimization problem of maximizing the expected exponential utility of terminal wealth and solve it by using the corresponding Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation. Explicit expression for the optimal value function and the corresponding optimal strategies are obtained.     

Classical mean-variance model revisited: pseudo efficiency

Investigating the inverse problem of the classical Markowitz mean-variance formulation: Given a mean-variance pair, find initial investment levels and their corresponding portfolio policies such that the given mean-variance pair can be realized, we reveal that any mean-variance pair inside the reachable region can be achieved by multiple portfolio policies associated with different initial investment levels. Therefore, in the mean-variance world for a market of all risky assets, the common belief of monotonicity: ‘The larger you invest, the larger expected future wealth you can expect for a given risk (variance) level’ does not hold, which stimulates us to extend the classical two-objective mean-variance framework to an expanded three-objective framework: to maximize the mean and minimize the variance of the final wealth as well as to minimize the initial investment level. As a result, we eliminate from the policy candidate list the set of pseudo efficient policies that are efficient in the original mean-variance space, but inefficient in this newly introduced three-dimensional objective space.