BSDEs with nonlinear weak terminal condition

Abstract

In a recent paper, Bouchard, Elie and Reveillac \cite{BER} have studied a new class of Backward Stochastic Differential Equations with weak terminal condition, for which the $T$-terminal value $Y_T$ of the solution $(Y,Z)$ is not fixed as a random variable, but only satisfies a constraint of the form $E[\Psi(Y_T)] \geq m.$ The aim of this paper is to introduce a more general class of BSDEs with {\em nonlinear weak terminal condition}. More precisely, the constraint takes the form $\mathcal{E}^f_{0,T}[\Psi(Y_T)] \geq m,$ where $\mathcal{E}^f$ represents the $f$-conditional expectation associated to a {\em nonlinear driver} $f$. We carry out a similar analysis as in \cite{BER} of the value function corresponding to the minimal solution $Y$ of the BSDE with nonlinear weak terminal condition: we study the regularity, establish the main properties, in particular continuity and convexity with respect to the parameter $m$, and finally provide a dual representation and the existence of an optimal control in the case of concave constraints. From a financial point of view, our study is closely related to the approximative hedging of an European option under dynamic risk measures constraints. The nonlinearity $f$ raises subtle difficulties, highlighted throughout the paper, which cannot be handled by the arguments used in the case of classical expectations constraints studied in \cite{BER}.