A continuous-time stochastic model for the mortality surface of multiple populations

We formulate, study and calibrate a continuous-time model for the joint evolution of the mortality surface of multiple populations. We model the mortality intensity by age and population as a mixture of stochastic latent factors, that can be either population-specific or common to all populations. These factors are described by affine time-(in)homogeneous stochastic processes. Traditional, deterministic mortality laws can be extended to multi-population stochastic counterparts within our framework. We detail the calibration procedure when factors are Gaussian, using centralized data-fusion Kalman filter. We provide an application based on the joint mortality of UK and Dutch males and females. Although parsimonious, the specification we calibrate provides a good fit of the observed mortality surface (ages 0–89) of both sexes and populations between 1960 and 2013.     

Valuation of equity-indexed annuities with regime-switching jump diffusion risk and stochastic mortality risk

This paper extends the model and analysis of Lin,Tan and Yang(2009).We assume that the financial market follows a regime-switching jump-diffusion model and the mortality satisfies Lvy process.We price the point to point and annual reset EIAs by Esscher transform method under Merton’s assumption and obtain the closed form pricing formulas.Under two cases:with mortality risk and without mortality risk,the effects of the model parameters on the EIAs pricing are illustrated through numerical experiments.     

A test for the bidirectional stochastic order with an application to quality control theory

A test for the bidirectional stochastic ordering is developed in this paper. The main properties of such a test are investigated. The asymptotic distribution of the statistic of the test is obtained under conditions which allow the construction of critical regions with a specific level of significance. It is also proved that the test is consistent on the whole set of alternatives. An application of such a test to quality control theory is developed.     

A BSDE approach to Nash equilibrium payoffs for stochastic differential games with nonlinear cost functionals

In this paper, we study Nash equilibrium payoffs for two-player nonzero-sum stochastic differential games via the theory of backward stochastic differential equations. We obtain an existence theorem and a characterization theorem of Nash equilibrium payoffs for two-player nonzero-sum stochastic differential games with nonlinear cost functionals defined with the help of doubly controlled backward stochastic differential equations. Our results extend former ones by Buckdahn et al. (2004) [3] and are based on a backward stochastic differential equation approach.     

A model of imperfect preventive maintenance with dependent failure modes

Consider a system subject to two modes of failures: maintainable and non-maintainable. A failure rate function is related to each failure mode. Whenever the system fails, a minimal repair is performed. Preventive maintenances are performed at integer multiples of a fixed period. The system is replaced when a fixed number of preventive maintenances have been completed. The preventive maintenance is imperfect because it reduces the failure rate of the maintainable failures but does not affect the failure rate of the non-maintainable failures. The two failure modes are dependent in the following way: after each preventive maintenance, the failure rate of the maintainable failures depends on the total of non-maintainable failures since the installation of the system. The problem is to determine an optimal length between successive preventive maintenances and the optimal number of preventive maintenances before the system replacement that minimize the expected cost rate. Optimal preventive maintenance schedules are obtained for non-decreasing failure rates and numerical examples for power law models are given.     

A note on the reflected backward stochastic differential equations driven by a Lévy process with stochastic Lipschitz condition

In this note, we prove the existence and uniqueness of the solution for a class of reflected backward stochastic differential equations (RBSDEs in short) related to the subdifferential operator of a lower semi-continuous convex function, driven by Teugels martingales associated with a Lévy process. Some known results are generalized and improved.     

An optimization approach to weak approximation of stochastic differential equations with jumps

We propose an optimization approach to weak approximation of stochastic differential equations with jumps. A mathematical programming technique is employed to obtain numerically upper and lower bound estimates of the expectation of interest, where the optimization procedure ends up with a polynomial programming. A major advantage of our approach is that we do not need to simulate sample paths of jump processes, for which few practical simulation techniques exist. We provide numerical results of moment estimations for Doléans-Dade stochastic exponential, truncated stable Lévy processes and Ornstein-Uhlenbeck-type processes to illustrate that our method is able to capture very well the distributional characteristics of stochastic differential equations with jumps.