We study a new type of representation problem for optional processes with connections to singular control, optimal stopping and dynamic allocation problems. As an application, we show how to solve a variant of Skorohod's obstacle problem in the context of backward stochastic differential...

In a complete financial market every contingent claim can be hedged perfectly. In an incomplete market it is possible to stay on the safe side by superhedging. But such strategies may require a large amount of initial capital. Here we study the question what an investor can do who is unwilling...

We establish a relation between stochastic volatility models and the class of generalized hyperbolic distributions. These distributions have been found to fit exceptionally well to the empirical distribution of stock returns. We review the background of hyperbolic distributions and prove...

Stochastic Volatility (SV) models are widely used in financial applications. To decide whether standard parametric restrictions are justified for a given dataset, a statistical test is required. In this paper, we develop such a test based on the linear state space representation. We provide a...

Let X be a continuous adapted process for which there exists an equivalent local martingale measure (ELMM). The minimal martingale measure P is the unique ELMM for X with the property that local P-martingales strongly orthogonal to the P-martingale part of X are also local P-martingales. We...