arXiv subjects

Julio Backhoff Veraguas

Publications and source records attributed to Julio Backhoff Veraguas.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2022

Stochastic control of optimized certainty equivalents

Optimized certainty equivalents (OCEs) is a family of risk measures widely used by both practitioners and academics. This is mostly due to its tractability and the fact that it encompasses important examples, including entropic risk measures and average value at risk. In this work we consider stochastic optimal control problems where the objective criterion is given by an OCE risk measure, or put in other words, a risk minimization problem for controlled diffusions. A major difficulty arises since OCEs are often time inconsistent. Nevertheless, via an enlargement of state space we achieve a substitute of sorts for time consistency in fair generality. This allows us to derive a dynamic programming principle and thus recover central results of (risk-neutral) stochastic control theory. In particular, we show that the value of our risk minimization problem can be characterized via the viscosity solution of a Hamilton--Jacobi--Bellman--Issacs equation. We further establish the uniqueness of the latter under suitable technical conditions.

math.OC↗

arXiv2019

Existence, Duality, and Cyclical monotonicity for weak transport costs

The optimal weak transport problem has recently been introduced by Gozlan et.\ al. We provide general existence and duality results for these problems on arbitrary Polish spaces, as well as a necessary and sufficient optimality criterion in the spirit of cyclical monotonicity. As an application we extend the Brenier-Strassen Theorem of Gozlan-Juillet to general probability measures on $R^d$ under minimal assumptions. A driving idea behind our proofs is to consider the set of transport plans with a new (`adapted') topology which seems better suited for the weak transport problem and allows to carry out arguments which are close to the proofs in the classical setup.

math.OC↗

arXiv2018

Fundamental Properties of Process Distances

Information is an inherent component of stochastic processes and to measure the distance between different stochastic processes it is not sufficient to consider the distance between their laws. Instead, the information which accumulates over time and which is mathematically encoded by filtrations has to be accounted for as well. The nested distance/bicausal Wasserstein distance addresses this challenge by incorporating the filtration. It is of emerging importance due to its applications in stochastic analysis, stochastic programming, mathematical economics and other disciplines. This article establishes a number of fundamental properties of the nested distance. In particular we prove that the nested distance of processes generates a Polish topology but is itself not a complete metric. We identify its completion to be the set of nested distributions, which are a form of generalized stochastic processes. We also characterize the extreme points of the set of couplings which participate in the definition of the nested distance, proving that they can be identified with adapted deterministic maps. Finally, we compare the nested distance to an alternative metric, which could possibly be easier to compute in practical situations.

math.OC↗

arXiv2017

Causal optimal transport and its links to enlargement of filtrations and continuous-time stochastic optimization

The martingale part in the semimartingale decomposition of a Brownian motion with respect to an enlargement of its filtration, is an anticipative mapping of the given Brownian motion. In analogy to optimal transport theory, we define causal transport plans in the context of enlargement of filtrations, as the Kantorovich counterparts of the aforementioned non-adapted mappings. We provide a necessary and sufficient condition for a Brownian motion to remain a semimartingale in an enlarged filtration, in terms of certain minimization problems over sets of causal transport plans. The latter are also used in order to give robust transport-based estimates for the value of having additional information, as well as model sensitivity with respect to the reference measure, for the classical stochastic optimization problems of utility maximization and optimal stopping. Our results have natural extensions to the case of general multidimensional continuous semimartingales.

math.PR↗

arXiv2017

On the dynamic representation of some time-inconsistent risk measures in a Brownian filtration

It is well-known from the work of Kupper and Schachermayer that most law-invariant risk measures do not admit a time-consistent representation. In this work we show that in a Brownian filtration the "Optimized Certainty Equivalent" risk measures of Ben-Tal and Teboulle can be computed through PDE techniques, i.e. dynamically. This can be seen as a substitute of sorts whenever they lack time consistency, and covers the cases of conditional value-at-risk and monotone mean-variance. Our method consists of focusing on the convex dual representation, which suggests extending the state space. With this we can obtain a dynamic programming principle and use stochastic control techniques, along with the theory of viscosity solutions, which we must adapt to cover the present singular situation.

math.OC↗

arXiv2017

Causal transport in discrete time and applications

Loosely speaking, causal transport plans are a relaxation of adapted processes in the same sense as Kantorovich transport plans extend Monge-type transport maps. The corresponding causal version of the transport problem has recently been introduced by Lassalle. Working in a discrete time setup, we establish a dynamic programming principle that links the causal transport problem to the transport problem for general costs recently considered by Gozlan et al. Based on this recursive principle, we give conditions under which the celebrated Knothe-Rosenblatt rearrangement can be viewed as a causal analogue to the Brenier's map. Moreover, these considerations provide transport-information inequalities for the nested distance between stochastic processes pioneered by Pflug and Pichler, and so serve to gauge the discrepancy between stochastic programs driven by different noise distributions.

math.OC↗

arXiv2017

Sensitivity analysis for expected utility maximization in incomplete Brownian market models

We examine the issue of sensitivity with respect to model parameters for the problem of utility maximization from final wealth in an incomplete Samuelson model and mainly, but not exclusively, for utility functions of positive power-type. The method consists in moving the parameters through change of measure, which we call a weak perturbation, decoupling the usual wealth equation from the varying parameters. By rewriting the maximization problem in terms of a convex-analytical support function of a weakly-compact set, crucially leveraging on the work of Backhoff and Fontbona (SIFIN 2016), the previous formulation let us prove the Hadamard directional differentiability of the value function w.r.t. the drift and interest rate parameters, as well as for volatility matrices under a stability condition on their Kernel, and derive explicit expressions for the directional derivatives. We contrast our proposed weak perturbations against what we call strong perturbations, where the wealth equation is directly influenced by the changing parameters. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we find that both points of view generally yield different sensitivities unless e.g. if initial parameters and their perturbations are deterministic.

q-fin.MF↗