Bounds for a constrained optimal stopping problem

In this short letter, we present an explicit upper bound for the optimal value of a bidimensional optimal stopping problem over stopping times τ subject to a constraint , where x(.) is a geometric Brownian motion coupled with an arbitrary diffusion process y(.), θ(., .) and c(.) are given positive, continuous functions and β > 0 is a fixed constant. The present result is derived from a corresponding Lagrangian dual problem, and using a recent result of Makasu (Seq Anal 27:435–440, 2008). Examples are given to illustrate our main result. Partial results of this note were obtained when the author was holding a postdoc grant PRO12/1003 at the Mathematics Institute, University of Oslo, Norway.