The analysis of diffusion processes in financial models is crucially dependent on the form of the drift and diffusion coefficient functions. A methodology is proposed for estimating and testing coefficient functions for ergodic diffusions that are not directly observable. It is based on...

When people decide about saving and consumption across the various periods of their life time they take into account their life expectancy when comparing present and future needs and resources for satisfying them. The experimental design, applied at two sites (Humboldt-University at Berlin and...

The utility maximization problem of "ratchet investors" who do not tolerate any decline in their consumption rate is solved explicitly for all felicity functions in a Markovian framework which includes Brownian motion and Poisson processes as special cases. The optimal consumption plan turns out...

We extend the analysis of the intertemporal utility maximization problem for Hindy-Huang-Kreps utilities reported in Bank and Riedel (1998) to the stochastic case. Existence and uniqueness of optimal consumption plans are established under arbitrary convex portfolio constraints, including both...

We prove existence of an Arrow-Debreu equilibrium when agents' preferences exhibit local substitution in the sense of Hindy, Huang, and Kreps (1992). Efficient allocations and supporting price functionals are identified and characterized. Under Hindy Huang Kreps preferences, equilibrium price...

Problems arising in Finance have become a significant source of new developments in Stochastic Analysis. We discuss some recent case studies, in particular some decomposition and representation theorems which are motivated by problems of hedging derivatives and of intertemporal consumption choice.

The influence of heterogeneous time preferences on the term structure is investigated. Motivated by the Preferred Habitat Theory of Modigliani and Sutch, a model for intertemporal preferences accounting for preferred habitats is proposed. In a heterogeneous world, preferred habitats can explain...

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...

An investor faced with a contingent claim may eliminate risk by (super-)hedging in a financial market. As this is often quite expensive, we study partial hedges, which require less capital and reduce the risk. In a previous paper we determined quantile hedges which succeed with maximal...