Time-consistent investment-reinsurance strategies towards joint interests of the insurer and the reinsurer under CEV models

The present paper studies time-consistent solutions to an investment-reinsurance problem under a mean-variance framework.The paper is distinguished from other literature by taking into account the interests of both an insurer and a reinsurer jointly.The claim process of the insurer is governed by a Brownian motion with a drift.A proportional reinsurance treaty is considered and the premium is calculated according to the expected value principle.Both the insurer and the reinsurer are assumed to invest in a risky asset,which is distinct for each other and driven by a constant elasticity of variance model.The optimal decision is formulated on a weighted sum of the insurer’s and the reinsurer’s surplus processes.Upon a verification theorem,which is established with a formal proof for a more general problem,explicit solutions are obtained for the proposed investment-reinsurance model.Moreover,numerous mathematical analysis and numerical examples are provided to demonstrate those derived results as well as the economic implications behind.     

Optimal investment consumption model with a higher interest rate for borrowing

This paper considers a consumption and investment decision problem with a higher interest rate for borrowing as well as the dividend rate. Wealth is divided into a riskless asset and risky asset with logrithmic Erownian motion price fluctuations. The stochastic control problem of maximizating expected utility from terminal wealth and consumption is studied. Equivalent conditions for optimality are obtained. By using duality methods ,the existence of optimal portfolio consumption is proved,and the explicit solutions leading to feedback formulae are derived for deteministic coefficients.     

European option pricing model in a stochastic and fuzzy environment

The primary goal of this paper is to price European options in the Merton＇s frame- work with underlying assets following jump-diffusion using fuzzy set theory. Owing to the vague fluctuation of the real financial market, the average jump rate and jump sizes cannot be recorded or collected accurately. So the main idea of this paper is to model the rate as a triangular fuzzy number and jump sizes as fuzzy random variables and use the property of fuzzy set to deduce two different jump-diffusion models underlying principle of rational expectations equilibrium price. Unlike many conventional models, the European option price will now turn into a fuzzy number. One of the major advantages of this model is that it allows investors to choose a reasonable European option price under an acceptable belief degree. The empirical results will serve as useful feedback information for improvements on the proposed model.     

Corrected empirical likelihood for a class of generalized linear measurement error models

Generalized linear measurement error models, such as Gaussian regression, Poisson regression and logistic regression, are considered. To eliminate the effects of measurement error on parameter estimation, a corrected empirical likelihood method is proposed to make statistical inference for a class of generalized linear measurement error models based on the moment identities of the corrected score function. The asymptotic distribution of the empirical log-likelihood ratio for the regression parameter is proved to be a Chi-squared distribution under some regularity conditions. The corresponding maximum empirical likelihood estimator of the regression parameter π is derived, and the asymptotic normality is shown. Furthermore, we consider the construction of the confidence intervals for one component of the regression parameter by using the partial profile empirical likelihood. Simulation studies are conducted to assess the finite sample performance. A real data set from the ACTG 175 study is used for illustrating the proposed method.     

Empirical likelihood-based inferences for the area under the ROC curve with covariates

In the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis,the area under the ROC curve (AUC) is a popular summary index of discriminatory accuracy of a diagnostic test.Incorporating covariates into ROC analysis can improve the diagnostic accuracy of the test.Regression model for the AUC is a tool to evaluate the effects of the covariates on the diagnostic accuracy.In this paper,empirical likelihood (EL) method is proposed for the AUC regression model.For the regression parameter vector,it can be shown that the asymptotic distribution of its EL ratio statistic is a weighted sum of independent chi-square distributions.Confidence regions are constructed for the parameter vector based on the newly developed empirical likelihood theorem,as well as for the covariate-specific AUC.Simulation studies were conducted to compare the relative performance of the proposed EL-based methods with the existing method in AUC regression.Finally,the proposed methods are illustrated with a real data set.     

收益率椭球分布不确定下的均值-CVaR优化研究（英文）

The article explores a mean-CVaR ratio model with returns distribution uncertainty. To describe the uncertainty of returns distribution, a mixture ellipsoidal distribution absorbing some typical distributions such as the mixture distribution and and ellipsoidal distribution is introduced. Then, by using robust technique with some assumptions, the original robust mean-CVaR ratio model can be formulated as a secondorder cone optimization model where the underlying random returns have a mixture ell...     

Optimal proportional reinsurance and investment problem with jump-diffusion risk process under effect of inside information

We study optimal investment and proportional reinsurance strategy in the presence of inside information. The risk process is assumed to follow a compound Poisson process perturbed by a standard Brownian motion. The insurer is allowed to invest in a risk-free asset and a risky asset as well as to purchase proportional reinsurance. In addition, it has some extra information available from the beginning of the trading interval, thus introducing in this way inside information aspects to our model. We consider two optimization problems： the problem of maximizing the expected exponential utility of terminal wealth with and without inside information, respectively. By solving the corresponding Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations, explicit expressions for their optimal value functions and the corresponding optimal strategies are obtained. Finally, we discuss the effects of parameters on the optimal strategy and the effect of the inside information by numerical simulations.     

THE REGULARITY OF THE FREE BOUNDARY FOR STRIKE RESET OPTION

A strike reset option is an option that allows its holder to reset the strike price to the prevailing underlying asset price at a moment chosen by the holder. The pricing model of the option can be formulated as a parabolic variational inequality and the optimal reset strategy is the free boundary. The smoothness of the free boundary in some cases was showed in our article published in JDE. We would prove its smoothness in the other case in this paper by a generalized comparison principle for the variational inequality.     

NONDESCENT SUBGRADIENT METHOD FOR NONSMOOTH CONSTRAINED MINIMIZATION

A kind of nondecreasing subgradient algorithm with appropriate stopping rule has been proposed for nonsmooth constrained minimization problem. The dual theory is invoked in dealing with the stopping rule and general global minimiizing algorithm is employed as a subroutine of the algorithm. The method is expected to tackle a large class of nonsmooth constrained minimization problem.     

Markov-modulated mean-variance problem for an insurer

In this paper, we consider an insurance company which has the option of investing in a risky asset and a risk-free asset, whose price parameters are driven by a finite state Markov chain. The risk process of the insurance company is modeled as a diffusion process whose diffusion and drift parameters switch over time according to the same Markov chain. We study the Markov-modulated mean-variance problem for the insurer and derive explicitly the closed form of the efficient strategy and efficient frontier. In the case of no regime switching, we can see that the efficient frontier in our paper coincides with that of [10] when there is no pure jump.     

Multi-period portfolio selection problem under uncertain environment with bankruptcy constraint

The complexity of financial markets leads to different types of indeterminate asset returns. For example, asset returns are considered as random variables, when the available data is enough. When the available data is too small or even no available data to estimate a probability distribution, we have to invite some domain experts to evaluate the belief degrees of asset returns. Then, asset returns can be described as uncertain variables. In this paper, we discuss a multi-period portfolio selection problem under uncertain environment, which maximizes the final wealth and minimizes the risk of investment. Unlike the common method to describe the multi-period portfolio selection problem as a bi-objective optimization model, we formulate this uncertain multi-period portfolio selection problem by a new method in three steps with two single objective optimization models. And, we consider the influence of transaction cost and bankruptcy of investor. Then, the proposed uncertain optimization models are transformed into the corresponding crisp optimization models and we use the genetic algorithm combined with penalty function method to solve them. Finally, a numerical example is given to show the effectiveness and practicability of proposed models and method.     

Robust option pricing

In this paper, we combine robust optimization and the idea of ?$?$-arbitrage to propose a tractable approach to price a wide variety of options. Rather than assuming a probabilistic model for the stock price dynamics, we assume that the conclusions of probability theory, such as the central limit theorem, hold deterministically on the underlying returns. This gives rise to an uncertainty set that the underlying asset returns satisfy. We then formulate the option pricing problem as a robust optimization problem that identifies the portfolio which minimizes the worst case replication error for a given uncertainty set defined on the underlying asset returns. The most significant benefits of our approach are (a) computational tractability illustrated by our ability to price multi-asset, American and Asian options using linear optimization; and thus the computational complexity of our approach scales polynomially with the number of assets and with time to expiry and (b) modeling flexibility illustrated by our ability to model different kinds of options, various levels of risk aversion among investors, transaction costs, shorting constraints and replication via option portfolios.     

Portfolio optimization when asset returns have the Gaussian mixture distribution

In this paper we consider a portfolio optimization problem where the underlying asset returns are distributed as a mixture of two multivariate Gaussians; these two Gaussians may be associated with “distressed” and “tranquil” market regimes. In this context, the Sharpe ratio needs to be replaced by other non-linear objective functions which, in the case of many underlying assets, lead to optimization problems which cannot be easily solved with standard techniques. We obtain a geometric characterization of efficient portfolios, which reduces the complexity of the portfolio optimization problem.     

Worst-case robust Omega ratio

The Omega ratio is a recent performance measure proposed to overcome the known shortcomings of the Sharpe ratio. Until recently, the Omega ratio was thought to be computationally intractable, and research was focused on heuristic optimization procedures. We have shown elsewhere that the Omega ratio optimization is equivalent to a linear program and hence can be solved exactly in polynomial time. This permits the investigation of more complex and realistic variants of the problem. The standard formulation of the Omega ratio requires perfect information for the probability distribution of the asset returns. In this paper, we investigate the problem arising from the probability distribution of the asset returns being only partially known. We introduce the robust variant of the conventional Omega ratio that hedges against uncertainty in the probability distribution. We examine the worst-case Omega ratio optimization problem under three types of uncertainty – mixture distribution, box and ellipsoidal uncertainty – and show that the problem remains tractable.     

Portfolio management with background risk under uncertain mean-variance utility

This paper studies comparative static effects in a portfolio selection problem when the investor has mean-variance preferences. Since the security market is complex, there exists the situation where security returns are given by experts’ estimates when they cannot be reflected by historical data. This paper discusses the problem in such a situation. Based on uncertainty theory, the paper first establishes an uncertain mean-variance utility model, in which security returns and background asset returns are uncertain variables and subject to normal uncertainty distributions. Then, the effects of changes in mean and standard deviation of uncertain background asset on capital allocation are discussed. Furthermore, the influence of initial proportion in background asset on portfolio investment decisions is analyzed when investors have quadratic mean-variance utility function. Finally, the economic analysis illustration of investment strategy is presented.

     

Robust optimization and portfolio selection: The cost of robustness

Robust optimization is a tractable alternative to stochastic programming particularly suited for problems in which parameter values are unknown, variable and their distributions are uncertain. We evaluate the cost of robustness for the robust counterpart to the maximum return portfolio optimization problem. The uncertainty of asset returns is modelled by polyhedral uncertainty sets as opposed to the earlier proposed ellipsoidal sets. We derive the robust model from a min-regret perspective and examine the properties of robust models with respect to portfolio composition. We investigate the effect of different definitions of the bounds on the uncertainty sets and show that robust models yield well diversified portfolios, in terms of the number of assets and asset weights.     

Investment models based on clustered scenario trees

Stochastic programming is widely applied in financial decision problems. In particular, when we need to carry out the actual calculations for portfolio selection problems, we have to assign a value for each expected return and the associated conditional probability in advance. These estimated random parameters often rely on a scenario tree representing the distribution of the underlying asset returns. One of the drawbacks is that the estimated parameters may be deviated from the actual ones. Therefore, robustness is considered so as to cope with the issue of parameter inaccuracy. In view of this, we propose a clustered scenario-tree approach, which accommodates the parameter inaccuracy problem in the context of a scenario tree.     

Nearly-Optimal Asset Allocation in Hybrid Stock Investment Models

This work develops a class of stock-investment models that are hybrid in nature and involve continuous dynamics and discrete-event interventions. In lieu of the usual geometric Brownian motion formulation, hybrid geometric Brownian motion models are proposed, in which both the expected return and the volatility depend on a finite-state Markov chain. Our objective is to find nearly-optimal asset allocation strategies so as to maximize the expected returns. The use of the Markov chain stems from the motivation of capturing the market trends as well as various economic factors. To incorporate these economic factors into the models, the underlying Markov chain inevitably has a large state space. To reduce the complexity, a hierarchical approach is suggested, which leads to singularly-perturbed switching diffusion processes. By aggregating the states of the Markov chains in each weakly irreducible class into a single state, limit switching diffusion processes are obtained. Using such asymptotic properties, nearly-optimal asset allocation policies are developed.     

Taylor series approximations to expected utility and optimal portfolio choice

This paper revisits the subject of Taylor series approximations to expected utility and investigates the applicability of the technique to optimal portfolio choice problems. We first provide conditions under which the approximate expected utility of a given portfolio converges to its exact counterpart. We then extend the analysis to the optimal portfolio choice setting and provide conditions on the distribution of asset returns under which the solution to the approximate portfolio choice problem converges to its exact counterpart. Finally, we show that, when asset returns are skewed, one can improve the precision and efficiency of the Taylor expansion by applying a simple nonlinear transformation to asset returns designed to symmetrize the transformed return distribution and shrink its support.     

基于不确定性期望效用模型的投资优化

针对资产的收益的分布不确切知道,并且所获得的矩信息也不是准确值的问题,提出了最大化最坏情形期望效用的鲁棒性方法.引入了凹凸类效用函数来度量模型不确定情形下投资者的效用,用一个不确定性结构来刻画资产收益的所有可能的分布和收益的矩信息,通过把具有不确定性结构的鲁棒性模型转化成参数二次规划问题,得到了最优投资策略、有效前沿和均衡价格的解析表示.方法为采用保守策略并且厌恶不确定性的投资者提供了一种有效的投资决策方案.