In this thesis we deal with different topics in financial mathematics, that are all related to market imperfections and to the fundamental technique of utility maximization. The work consists of three parts. In the first one, which is based on two papers, we consider the problem of optimal...

This paper investigates association between portfolio returns and higher-order systematic co-moments at different timescales obtained through wavelet multi-scaling- a technique that decomposes a given return series into different timescales enabling investigation at different return intervals....

This paper offers a review of investment performance appraisal methods. The review starts with an exhaustive coverage of various methods ranging from early measures of risk-adjusted return to more recent methods including the rating given by ASSIRT, a financial services organisation that assess...

In this paper, the volatility of the return generating process of the market portfolio and the slope coefficient of the market model is assumed to follow a Markov switching process of order one. The results indicate very strong evidence of volatility switching behaviour in a sample of returns in...

In this paper we deal with a utility maximization problem at finite horizon on a continuous-time market with conical (and time varying) constraints (particularly suited to model a currency market with proportional transaction costs). In particular, we extend the results in Campi and Owen (2011)...