Complete discounted cash flow valuation

This paper concerns discounted cash flow valuation of a company. When the company is in trouble, the owners have an option to provide it with a new capital; otherwise it is liquidated. In the absence of capital outflows and inflows, the company’s own funds are modelled by a spectrally negative Lévy process. Within this framework, we look for a strategy of dividend payments and capital injections which maximizes the firm’s value. We provide an optimal strategy as well as the corresponding valuation formula. Illustrative examples are given.     

On pre-exit joint occupation times for spectrally negative Lévy processes

We adopt a new approach to find Laplace transforms of joint occupation times over disjoint intervals for spectrally negative Lévy processes. The Laplace transforms are expressed in terms of scale functions.     

Fluctuation theory for level-dependent Lévy risk processes

A level-dependent Lévy process solves the stochastic differential equation $dU\left(t\right)=dX\left(t\right)??\left(U\left(t\right)\right)dt$, where $X$ is a spectrally negative Lévy process. A special case is a multi-refracted Lévy process with ${?}_k\left(x\right)={\sum }_{j=1}^k{\delta }_j{\mathbf{1}}_{\{x\ge b_j\}}$. A general rate function $?$ that is non-decreasing and locally Lipschitz continuous is also considered. We discuss solutions of the above stochastic differential equation and investigate the so-called scale functions, which are counterparts of the scale functions from the theory of Lévy processes. We show how fluctuation identities for $U$ can be expressed via these scale functions. We demonstrate that the derivatives of the scale functions are solutions of Volterra integral equations.     

Dependence properties and comparison results for Lévy processes

In this paper we investigate dependence properties and comparison results for multidimensional Lévy processes. In particular we address the questions, whether or not dependence properties and orderings of the copulas of the distributions of a Lévy process can be characterized by corresponding properties of the Lévy copula, a concept which has been introduced recently in Cont and Tankov (Financial modelling with jump processes. Chapman & Hall/CRC, Boca Raton, 2004) and Kallsen and Tankov (J Multivariate Anal 97:1551–1572, 2006). It turns out that association, positive orthant dependence and positive supermodular dependence of Lévy processes can be characterized in terms of the Lévy measure as well as in terms of the Lévy copula. As far as comparisons of Lévy processes are concerned we consider the supermodular and the concordance order and characterize them by orders of the Lévy measures and by orders of the Lévy copulas, respectively. An example is given that the Lévy copula does not determine dependence concepts like multivariate total positivity of order 2 or conditionally increasing in sequence. Besides these general results we specialize our findings for subfamilies of Lévy processes. The last section contains some applications in finance and insurance like comparison statements for ruin times, ruin probabilities and option prices which extends the current literature. Anja Blatter was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).     

On the bailout dividend problem with periodic dividend payments for spectrally negative Markov additive processes

This paper studies the bailout optimal dividend problem with regime switching under the constraint that dividend payments can be made only at the arrival times of an independent Poisson process while capital can be injected continuously in time. We show the optimality of the regime-modulated Parisian-classical reflection strategy when the underlying risk model follows a general spectrally negative Markov additive process. In order to verify the optimality, first we study an auxiliary problem driven by a single spectrally negative Lévy process with a final payoff at an exponential terminal time and characterize the optimal dividend strategy. Then, we use the dynamic programming principle to transform the global regime-switching problem into an equivalent local optimization problem with a final payoff up to the first regime switching time. The optimality of the regime modulated Parisian-classical barrier strategy can be proven by using the results from the auxiliary problem and approximations via recursive iterations.     

Non-homogeneous space-time fractional Poisson processes

The space-time fractional Poisson process (STFPP), defined by Orsingher and Poilto (2012), is a generalization of the time fractional Poisson process (TFPP) and the space fractional Poisson process (SFPP). We study the fractional generalization of the non-homogeneous Poisson process and call it the non-homogeneous space-time fractional Poisson process (NHSTFPP). We compute their pmf and generating function and investigate the associated differential equation. The limit theorems for the NHSTFPP process are studied. We study the distributional properties, the asymptotic expansion of the correlation function of the non-homogeneous time fractional Poisson process (NHTFPP) and subsequently investigate the long-range dependence (LRD) property of a special NHTFPP. We investigate the limit theorem for the fractional non-homogeneous Poisson process (FNHPP) studied by Leonenko et al. (2014). Finally, we present some simulated sample paths of the NHSTFPP process.     

Occupation times of spectrally negative Lévy processes with applications

In this paper, we compute the Laplace transform of occupation times (of the negative half-line) of spectrally negative Lévy processes. Our results are extensions of known results for standard Brownian motion and jump-diffusion processes. The results are expressed in terms of the so-called scale functions of the spectrally negative Lévy process and its Laplace exponent. Applications to insurance risk models are also presented.     

Nonparametric estimation for the ruin probability in a Lévy risk model under low-frequency observation

In this paper, we propose a nonparametric estimator for the ruin probability in a spectrally negative Lévy risk model based on low-frequency observation. The estimator is constructed via the Fourier transform of the ruin probability. The convergence rates of the estimator are studied for large sample size. Some simulation results are also given to show the performance of the proposed method when the sample size is finite.     

A note on scale functions and the time value of ruin for Lévy insurance risk processes

We examine discounted penalties at ruin for surplus dynamics driven by a general spectrally negative Lévy process; the natural class of stochastic processes which contains many examples of risk processes which have already been considered in the existing literature. Following from the important contributions of [Zhou, X., 2005. On a classical risk model with a constant dividend barrier. North Am. Act. J. 95-108] we provide an explicit characterization of a generalized version of the Gerber-Shiu function in terms of scale functions, streamlining and extending results available in the literature.     

Asymptotics for the ruin probability of a time-dependent renewal risk model with geometric Lévy process investment returns and dominatedly-varying-tailed claims

Consider a continuous-time renewal risk model, in which the claim sizes and inter-arrival times form a sequence of independent and identically distributed random pairs, with each pair obeying a dependence structure. Suppose that the surplus is invested in a portfolio whose return follows a Lévy process. When the claim-size distribution is dominatedly-varying tailed, asymptotic estimates for the finite- and infinite-horizon ruin probabilities are obtained.     

Approximation of quantum Lévy processes by quantum random walks

Every quantum Lévy process with a bounded stochastic generator is shown to arise as a strong limit of a family of suitably scaled quantum random walks.     

Ruin probability for Lévy risk process compounded by geometric Brownian motion

In this paper, we assume that the surplus of an insurer follows a Lévy risk process and the insurer would invest its surplus in a risky asset, whose prices are modeled by a geometric Brownian motion. It is shown that the ruin probabilities (by a jump or by oscillation) of the resulting surplus process satisfy certain integro-differential equations.      

Limit distributions for risk processes in case of claim amounts of finite expectation

We prove limit theorems for the distribution of $\text{Z}{}_{\mathrm{l}}\text{if {Z}{}_{\mathrm{l}}\text{:l ?}\text{R}{}_{\mathrm{+}}\text{}}$ is a risk process with claim amounts of finite mean. The results are illustrated by several examples and counterexamples.     

Uniform asymptotics for a multi-dimensional time-dependent risk model with multivariate regularly varying claims and stochastic return

This paper is devoted to asymptotic analysis for a multi-dimensional risk model with a general dependence structure and stochastic return driven by a geometric Lévy process. We take into account both the dependence among the claim sizes from different lines of businesses and that between the claim sizes and their common claim-number process. Under certain mild technical conditions, we obtain for two types of ruin probabilities precise asymptotic expansions which hold uniformly for the whole time horizon.     

A Wiener-Hopf factorization related potential measure for spectrally negative Lévy process

For spectrally negative Lévy process (SNLP), we find an expression, in terms of scale functions, for a potential measure involving the maximum and the last time of reaching the maximum up to a draw-down time. As applications, we obtain a potential measure for the reflected SNLP and recover a joint Laplace transform for the Wiener-Hopf factorization for SNLP.