A quasi-maximum likelihood procedure for estimating the parameters of multi-dimensional diffusions is developed in which the transitional density is a multivariate Gaussian density with first and second moments approximating the true moments of the unknown density. For affine drift and diffusion...

This paper considers the optimal control problem of a large insurance company under a fixed insolvency probability. The company controls proportional reinsurance rate, dividend pay-outs and investing process to maximize the expected present value of the dividend pay-outs until the time of...

Parametric estimation of two-dimensional hypoelliptic diffusions is considered when complete observations–both coordinates discretely observed–or partial observations–only one coordinate observed–are available. Since the volatility matrix is degenerate, Euler contrast estimators cannot...

A central element in organization of financal means by a person, a company or societal group consists in the constitution, analysis and optimization of portfolios. This requests the time-depending modeling of processes. Likewise many processes in nature, technology and economy, financial...

Maximum likelihood estimation of discretely observed diffusion processes is mostly hampered by the lack of a closed form solution of the transient density. It has recently been argued that a most generic remedy to this problem is the numerical solution of the pertinent Fokker-Planck (FP) or...

We consider a multivariate continuous time process, generated by a system of linear stochastic differential equations, driven by white noise and involving coefficients that possibly vary over time. The process is observable only at discrete, but not necessarily equally-spaced, time points...

The objective of the present paper is to find new sufficient conditions for the existence of unique strong solutions to a class of (time-inhomogeneous) stochastic differential equations with random, non-Lipschitzian coefficients. We give an example to show that our conditions are indeed weaker...

The solution of the Kolmogorov backward equation is expressed as a functional integral by means of the Feynman–Kac formula. The expectation value is approximated as a mean over trajectories. In order to reduce the variance of the estimate, importance sampling is utilized. From the optimal...

We consider the problem of how to prize general securities whose payoff at maturity only depends on the interest rate rT at the time of exercise, where rt is supposed to be a stochastic Feller process. We show how to generalize the results of Cox et al. [Econometrica 53 (2) (1985) 385] regarding...

We obtain upper and lower bounds for the density of a functional of a diffusion whose drift is bounded and measurable. The argument consists of using Girsanov’s theorem together with an Itô–Taylor expansion of the change of measure. One then applies Malliavin calculus techniques in a...