Probabilism,entropies and strictly proper scoring rules

Accuracy arguments are the en vogue route in epistemic justifications of probabilism and further norms governing rational belief. These arguments often depend on the fact that the employed inaccuracy measure is strictly proper. I argue controversially that it is ill-advised to assume that the employed inaccuracy measures are strictly proper and that strictly proper statistical scoring rules are a more natural class of measures of inaccuracy. Building on work in belief elicitation I show how strictly proper statistical scoring rules can be used to give an epistemic justification of probabilism.An agent's evidence does not play any role in these justifications of probabilism. Principles demanding the maximisation of a generalised entropy depend on the agent's evidence. In the second part of the paper I show how to simultaneously justify probabilism and such a principle. I also investigate scoring rules which have traditionally been linked with entropies.     

Arbitrage‐free call option surface construction using regression splines

In this work, we suggest a novel quadratic programming‐based algorithm to generate an arbitrage‐free call option surface. The empirical performance of the proposed method is evaluated using S&P 500 Index call options. Our results indicate that the proposed method provides a more precise fit to observed option prices than other alternative methodologies. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Geometrical methods for analyzing the optimal management of tipping point dynamics

Natural resources are not infinitely resilient and should not be modeled as being such. Finitely resilient resources feature tipping points and history dependence. This paper provides a didactical discussion of mathematical methods that are needed to understand the optimal management of such resources: viscosity solutions of Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equations, the costate equation and the associated canonical equations, exact root counting, and geometrical methods to analyze the geometry of the invariant manifolds of the canonical equations. Recommendations for Resource Managers

• Management of natural resources has to take into account the possible breakdown of resilience and induced regime shifts.
• Depending on the characteristics of the resource and on its present and future economic importance, either for all initial states the same kind of management policy is optimal, or the type of the optimal management policy depends on the initial state.
• Modeling should reflect the finiteness of the data.

     

Utility maximization problem with random endowment and transaction costs: when wealth may become negative

In this article, we study the problem of maximizing expected utility from the terminal wealth with proportional transaction costs and random endowment. In the context of the existence of consistent price systems, we consider the duality between the primal utility maximization problem and the dual one, which is set up on the domain of finitely additive measures. In particular, we prove duality results for utility functions supporting possibly negative values. Moreover, we construct a shadow market by the dual optimal process and consider the utility-based pricing for random endowment.     

ATIS和道路收费下混合SUE相对于SSO的效率损失

在ATIS和道路收费共同作用的异质性交通网络中,基于用户在信息接受程度与时间价值上的异质性,对用户进行合理分类,所有用户均按照随机方式进行择路.构建了多用户混合随机均衡等价的变分不等式模型,以及多用户随机社会最优模型.以用户感知的总出行成本作为系统性能评价的指标,当收费作为系统总成本的一部分时,分别在时间准则与费用准则下研究了多用户混合随机均衡相对于随机社会最优的绝对效率损失问题.研究结果表明,时间准则下的绝对效率损失上界与路段出行时间函数和混合随机均衡时系统的实际总出行时间有关,费用准则下的绝对效率损失上界还与出行者的社会经济特性和随机社会最优时系统的实际总出行时间有关.     

两阶段双寡头垄断市场Hotelling定价模型

激烈的双寡头垄断市场竞争环境下,单一定价和歧视定价成为厂商选择的两大定价策略.考虑到网络外部效用的广泛存在性与对称性,对传统的Hotelling模型加以改进,分价格竞争和策略选择两个阶段,对双寡头垄断厂商的定价策略进行了博弈分析,指出了各种均衡情况及需满足的条件,并验证了歧视定价相对单一定价的边际成本、网络外部效应、消费者对产品的忠诚度等因素对厂商进行定价策略选择的重要影响,为其制定最优定价策略提供了指导.     

Option Pricing and Hedging under a Markov Switching Lévy Process Model

In this paper,we consider a Markov switching Lévy process model in which the underlying risky assets are driven by the stochastic exponential of Markov switching Lévy process and then apply the model to option pricing and hedging.In this model,the market interest rate,the volatility of the underlying risky assets and the N-state compensator,depend on unobservable states of the economy which are modeled by a continuous-time Hidden Markov process.We use the MEMM(minimal entropy martingale measure) as the equivalent martingale measure.The option price using this model is obtained by the Fourier transform method.We obtain a closed-form solution for the hedge ratio by applying the local risk minimizing hedging.     

The fundamental theorem of mutual insurance

The essence of mutual insurance is the notion that re-distributing risk in a pool of risks is more beneficial than taking the risk alone. Interpreting ‘more beneficial’ as an increase in utility and considering sequences of exchangeable risks, we are able to formalize this notion from the policyholder’s perspective and demonstrate its validity for various alternative preference functionals (e.g., expected utility, Choquet expected utility, and distortion risk measures). To obtain this result, we exploit that for a sequence of exchangeable risks the corresponding sequence of arithmetical averages is a reversed martingale.We conclude that pooling risks is fundamental for understanding the mechanisms of insurance because it favourably affects the utility of policyholders, and we refer to this phenomenon as the ‘utility-improving effect of risk pooling’. Moreover, we demonstrate that the utility of the policyholder is (strictly) increasing with the size of the risk pool.     

The valuation of life contingencies: A symmetrical triangular fuzzy approximation

This paper extends the framework for the valuation of life insurance policies and annuities by Andrés-Sánchez and González-Vila (2012, 2014) in two ways. First we allow various uncertain magnitudes to be estimated by means of fuzzy numbers. This applies not only to interest rates but also to the amounts to be paid out by the insurance company. Second, the use of symmetrical triangular fuzzy numbers allows us to obtain expressions for the pricing of life contingencies and their variability that are closely linked to standard financial and actuarial mathematics. Moreover, they are relatively straightforward to compute and understand from a standard actuarial point of view.     

Lot‐sizing policies for deterioration items under two‐level trade credit with partial trade credit to credit‐risk retailer and limited storage capacity

The main purpose of this article is to investigate the optimal wholesaler's replenishment decisions for deterioration items under two levels of the trade credit policy and two storage facilities in order to reflect the supply chain management situation within the economic order quantity framework. In this study, each of the following assumptions have been made: (1) The own warehouse with limited capacity always is not sufficient to store the order quantity, so that a rented warehouse is needed to store the excess units over the capacity of the own warehouse; (2) The wholesaler always obtains the partial trade credit, which is independent of the order quantity offered by the supplier, but the wholesaler offers the full trade credit to the retailer; (3) The wholesaler must take a loan to pay his or her supplier the partial payment immediately when the order is received and then pay off the loan with the entire revenue. Under these three conditions, the wholesaler can obtain the least costs. Furthermore, this study models the wholesaler's optimal replenishment decisions under the aforementioned conditions in the supply chain management. Two theorems are developed to efficiently determine the optimal replenishment decisions for the wholesaler. Finally, numerical examples are given to illustrate the theorems that are proven in this study, and the sensitivity analysis with respect to the major parameters in this study is performed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.