Searcharxiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

Nizar Touzi

Publications and source records attributed to Nizar Touzi.

79 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
arXiv2012

Quasi-sure Stochastic Analysis through Aggregation

This paper is on developing stochastic analysis simultaneously under a general family of probability measures that are not dominated by a single probability measure. The interest in this question originates from the probabilistic representations of fully nonlinear partial differential equations and applications to mathematical finance. The existing literature relies either on the capacity theory (by Denis and Martini), or on the underlying nonlinear partial differential equation (by Peng). In both approaches, the resulting theory requires the smoothness of the corresponding processes and random variables in terms of the underlying canonical process. In this paper, we investigate this question for a larger class of "non-smooth" processes, but with a restricted family of non-dominated probability measures. For smooth processes, our approach leads to similar results as in previous literature, provided the restricted family satisfies an additional density property.

math.PR↗
arXiv2012

Wellposedness of Second Order Backward SDEs

We provide an existence and uniqueness theory for an extension of backward SDEs to the second order. While standard Backward SDEs are naturally connected to semilinear PDEs, our second order extension is connected to fully nonlinear PDEs, as suggested by Cheridito et.al. In particular, we provide a fully nonlinear extension of the Feynman-Kac formula. Unlike the earlier papers, the alternative formulation of this paper insists that the equation must hold under a non-dominated family of mutually singular probability measures. The key argument is a stochastic representation, suggested by the optimal control interpretation, and analyzed in our accompanying paper

math.PR↗
arXiv2010

A Probabilistic Numerical Method for Fully Nonlinear Parabolic PDEs

We consider the probabilistic numerical scheme for fully nonlinear PDEs suggested in \cite{cstv}, and show that it can be introduced naturally as a combination of Monte Carlo and finite differences scheme without appealing to the theory of backward stochastic differential equations. Our first main result provides the convergence of the discrete-time approximation and derives a bound on the discretization error in terms of the time step. An explicit implementable scheme requires to approximate the conditional expectation operators involved in the discretization. This induces a further Monte Carlo error. Our second main result is to prove the convergence of the latter approximation scheme, and to derive an upper bound on the approximation error. Numerical experiments are performed for the approximation of the solution of the mean curvature flow equation in dimensions two and three, and for two and five-dimensional (plus time) fully-nonlinear Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations arising in the theory of portfolio optimization in financial mathematics.

math.PR↗
arXiv2007

Kernel estimation of Greek weights by parameter randomization

A Greek weight associated to a parameterized random variable $Z(λ)$ is a random variable $π$ such that $\nabla_λE[ϕ(Z(λ))]=E[ϕ(Z(λ))π]$ for any function $ϕ$. The importance of the set of Greek weights for the purpose of Monte Carlo simulations has been highlighted in the recent literature. Our main concern in this paper is to devise methods which produce the optimal weight, which is well known to be given by the score, in a general context where the density of $Z(λ)$ is not explicitly known. To do this, we randomize the parameter $λ$ by introducing an a priori distribution, and we use classical kernel estimation techniques in order to estimate the score function. By an integration by parts argument on the limit of this first kernel estimator, we define an alternative simpler kernel-based estimator which turns out to be closely related to the partial gradient of the kernel-based estimator of $\mathbb{E}[ϕ(Z(λ))]$. Similarly to the finite differences technique, and unlike the so-called Malliavin method, our estimators are biased, but their implementation does not require any advanced mathematical calculation. We provide an asymptotic analysis of the mean squared error of these estimators, as well as their asymptotic distributions. For a discontinuous payoff function, the kernel estimator outperforms the classical finite differences one in terms of the asymptotic rate of convergence. This result is confirmed by our numerical experiments.

math.PR↗
arXiv2006

Small time path behavior of double stochastic integrals and applications to stochastic control

We study the small time path behavior of double stochastic integrals of the form $\int_0^t(\int_0^rb(u) dW(u))^T dW(r)$, where $W$ is a $d$-dimensional Brownian motion and $b$ is an integrable progressively measurable stochastic process taking values in the set of $d\times d$-matrices. We prove a law of the iterated logarithm that holds for all bounded progressively measurable $b$ and give additional results under continuity assumptions on $b$. As an application, we discuss a stochastic control problem that arises in the study of the super-replication of a contingent claim under gamma constraints.

math.PR↗
arXiv2006

Maturity randomization for stochastic control problems

We study a maturity randomization technique for approximating optimal control problems. The algorithm is based on a sequence of control problems with random terminal horizon which converges to the original one. This is a generalization of the so-called Canadization procedure suggested by Carr [Review of Financial Studies II (1998) 597--626] for the fast computation of American put option prices. In addition to the original application of this technique to optimal stopping problems, we provide an application to another problem in finance, namely the super-replication problem under stochastic volatility, and we show that the approximating value functions can be computed explicitly.

math.PR↗