We revisit the optimal investment and consumption model of Davis and Norman (1990) and Shreve and Soner (1994), following a shadow-price approach similar to that of Kallsen and Muhle-Karbe (2010). Making use of the completeness of the model without transaction costs, we reformulate and reduce the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation for this singular stochastic control problem to a non-standard free-boundary problem for a first-order ODE with an integral constraint. Having shown that the free boundary problem has a smooth solution, we use it to construct the solution of the original optimal investment/consumption problem in a self-contained manner and without any recourse to the dynamic programming principle. By analyzing the properties of the free boundary problem, we provide an explicit characterization of model parameters for which the value function is finite. Furthermore, we prove that the value function, as well as the slopes of the lines demarcating the no-trading region, can be expanded as a series of integer powers of [lambda superscript 1/3]. The coefficients of arbitrary order in this expansion can be computed. / text

My PhD thesis concentrates on the field of stochastic analysis, with focus on stochastic optimization and applications in finance. It is composed of two parts: the first part studies an optimal stopping problem, and the second part studies an optimal control problem. The first topic considers a one-dimensional transient and downwards drifting diffusion process X, and detects the optimal times of a random time(denoted as ρ). In particular, we consider two classes of random times: (1) the last time when the process exits a certain level l; (2) the time when the process reaches its maximum. For each random time, we solve the optimization problem infτ E[λ(τ- ρ)+ +(1-λ)(ρ - τ)+] overall all stopping times. For the last exit time, the process should stop optimally when it runs below some fixed level k the first time, where k is the solution of an explicit defined equation. For the ultimate maximum time, the process should stop optimally when it runs below a boundary which is the maximal positive solution (if exists) of a first-order ordinary differential equation which lies below the line λs for all s > 0 . The second topic solves an optimal consumption and investment problem for a risk-averse investor who is sensitive to declines than to increases of standard living (i.e., the investor is loss averse), and the investment opportunities are constant. We use the tools of stochastic control and duality methods to solve the resulting free-boundary problem in an infinite time horizon. Briefly, the investor consumes constantly when holding a moderate amount of wealth. In bliss time, the investor increases the consumption so that the consumption-wealth ratio reaches some fixed minimum level; in gloom time, the investor decreases the consumption gradually. Moreover, high loss aversion tends to raise the consumption-wealth ratio, but cut the investment-wealth ratio overall.

In the first part of our work we focus on the model of the optimal consumption with a random income. We provide the three dimensional equation for this model, demonstrate the reduction to the two dimensional case and provide for two different utility functions the full point-symmetries' analysis of the equations. We also demonstrate that for the logarithmic utility there exists a unique and smooth viscosity solution the existence of which as far as we know was never demonstrated before. In the second part of our work we develop the concept of the empirical liquidity measure. We provide the retrospective view of the works on this issue, discuss the proposed definitions and develop our own empirical measure based on the intuitive mathematical model and comprising several features of the definitions that existed before. Then we verify the measure provided on the real data from the market and demonstrate the advantages of the proposed value for measuring the illiquidity.

Cette thèse traite plusieurs problèmes qui se posent pour les marchés financiers avec coûts de transaction et se compose de quatre parties.On commence, dans la première partie, par une étude du problème de couverture approximative d’une option Européenne pour des marchés de volatilité locale avec coûts de transaction proportionnelles.Dans la seconde partie, on considère le problème de l’optimisation de consommation dans le modèle de Kabanov, lorsque les prix sont conduits par un processus de Lévy.Dans la troisième partie, on propose un modèle général incluant le cas de coûts fixes et coûts proportionnels. En introduisant la notion de fonction liquidative, on étudie le problème de sur-réplication d’une option et plusieurs types d’opportunités d’arbitrage.La dernière partie est consacrée à l’étude du problème de maximisation de l’utilité de la richesse terminale d’une portefeuille sous contraintes de risque. / This thesis deals with different problems related to markets with transaction costs and is composed of four parts.In part I, we begin with the study of assymptotic hedging a European option in a local volatility model with bid-ask spread.In part II, we study the optimal consumption problem in a Kabanov model with jumps and with default risk allowed.In part III, we sugest a general market model defined by a liquidation procès. This model is more general than the models with both fixed and proportional transaction costs. We study the problem of super-hedging an option, and the arbitrage theory in this model.In the last part, we study the utility maximization problem under expected risk constraint.

An optimal dividend problem with investment opportunities, taking into consideration a source of strategic risk is being considered, as well as the effect of market frictions on the decision process of the financial entities. It concerns the problem of determining an optimal control of the dividend under debt constraints and investment opportunities in an economy with business cycles. It is assumed that the company is to be allowed to accept or reject investment opportunities arriving at random times with random sizes, by changing its outstanding indebtedness, which would impact its capital structure and risk profile. This work mainly focuses on the strategic risk faced by the companies; and, in particular, it focuses on the manager's problem of setting appropriate priorities to deploy the limited resources available. This component is taken into account by introducing frictions in the capital structure modification process. The problem is formulated as a bi-dimensional singular control problem under regime switching in presence of jumps. An explicit condition is obtained in order to ensure that the value function is finite. A viscosity solution approach is used to get qualitative descriptions of the solution. Moreover, a lending scheme for a system of interconnected banks with probabilistic constraints of failure is being considered. The problem arises from the fact that financial institutions cannot possibly carry enough capital to withstand counterparty failures or systemic risk. In such situations, the central bank or the government becomes effectively the risk manager of last resort or, in extreme cases, the lender of last resort. If, on the one hand, the health of the whole financial system depends on government intervention, on the other hand, guaranteeing a high probability of salvage may result in increasing the moral hazard of the banks in the financial network. A closed form solution for an optimal control problem related to interbank lending schemes has been derived, subject to terminal probability constraints on the failure of banks which are interconnected through a financial network. The derived solution applies to real bank networks by obtaining a general solution when the aforementioned probability constraints are assumed for all the banks. We also present a direct method to compute the systemic relevance parameter for each bank within the network. Finally, a possible computation technique for the Default Risk Charge under to regulatory risk measurement processes is being considered. We focus on the Default Risk Charge measure as an effective alternative to the Incremental Risk Charge one, proposing its implementation by a quasi exhaustive-heuristic algorithm to determine the minimum capital requested to a bank facing the market risk associated to portfolios based on assets emitted by several financial agents. While most of the banks use the Monte Carlo simulation approach and the empirical quantile to estimate this risk measure, we provide new computational approaches, exhaustive or heuristic, currently becoming feasible, because of both new regulation and the high speed - low cost technology available nowadays.

Economic uncertainty may affect significantly people’s behavior and hence macroeconomic variables. It is thus important to understand how people behave in presence of different kinds of economic risk. The present dissertation focuses therefore on the impact of the uncertainty in capital and labor income on the individual saving behavior. The underlying uncertain variables are here modeled as stochastic processes that each obey a specific stochastic differential equation, where uncertainty stems either from Poisson or Lévy processes. The results on the optimal behavior are derived by maximizing the individual expected lifetime utility. The first chapter is concerned with the necessary mathematical tools, the change-of-variables formula and the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation under Poisson uncertainty. We extend their possible field of application in order make them appropriate for the analysis of the dynamic stochastic optimization problems occurring in the following chapters and elsewhere. The second chapter considers an optimum-saving problem with labor income, where capital risk stems from asset prices that follow geometric L´evy processes. Chapter 3, finally, studies the optimal saving behavior if agents face not only risk but also uncertain spells of unemployment. To this end, we turn back to Poisson processes, which here are used to model properly the separation and matching process.

Dans cette thèse, on étudie le problème de la consommation et de l’investissement pour le marché financier de "spread" (différence entre deux actifs) défini par le processus Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU). Ce manuscrit se compose de sept chapitres. Le chapitre 1 présente une revue générale de la littérature et un bref résumé des principaux résultats obtenus dans cetravail où différentes fonctions d’utilité sont considérées. Dans le chapitre 2, on étudie la stratégie optimale de consommation / investissement pour les fonctions puissances d’utilité pour un intervalle de temps réduit a 0 < t < T < T0. Dans ce chapitre, nous étudions l’équation de Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman (HJB) par la méthode de Feynman - Kac (FK). L’approximation numérique de la solution de l’équation de HJB est étudiée et le taux de convergence est établi. Il s’avère que dans ce cas, le taux de convergencedu schéma numérique est super–géométrique, c’est-à-dire plus rapide que tous ceux géométriques. Les principaux théorèmes sont énoncés et des preuves de l’existence et de l’unicité de la solution sont données. Un théorème de vérification spécial pour ce cas des fonctions puissances est montré. Le chapitre 3 étend notre approche au chapitre précédent à la stratégie de consommation/investissement optimale pour tout intervalle de temps pour les fonctions puissances d’utilité où l’exposant γ doit être inférieur à 1/4. Dans le chapitre 4, on résout le problème optimal de consommation/investissement pour les fonctions logarithmiques d’utilité dans le cadre du processus OU multidimensionnel en se basant sur la méthode de programmation dynamique stochastique. En outre, on montre un théorème de vérification spécial pour ce cas. Le théorème d’existence et d’unicité pour la solution classique de l’équation de HJB sous forme explicite est également démontré. En conséquence, les stratégies financières optimales sont construites. Quelques exemples sont donnés pour les cas scalaires et pour les cas multivariés à volatilité diagonale. Le modèle de volatilité stochastique est considéré dans le chapitre 5 comme une extension du chapitre précédent des fonctions logarithmiques d’utilité. Le chapitre 6 propose des résultats et des théorèmes auxiliaires nécessaires au travail.Le chapitre 7 fournit des simulations numériques pour les fonctions puissances et logarithmiques d’utilité. La valeur du point fixe h de l’application de FK pour les fonctions puissances d’utilité est présentée. Nous comparons les stratégies optimales pour différents paramètres à travers des simulations numériques. La valeur du portefeuille pour les fonctions logarithmiques d’utilité est également obtenue. Enfin, nous concluons nos travaux et présentons nos perspectives dans le chapitre 8. / This thesis studies the consumption/investment problem for the spread financial market defined by the Ornstein–Uhlenbeck (OU) process. Recently, the OU process has been used as a proper financial model to reflect underlying prices of assets. The thesis consists of 8 Chapters. Chapter 1 presents a general literature review and a short view of the main results obtained in this work where different utility functions have been considered. The optimal consumption/investment strategy are studied in Chapter 2 for the power utility functions for small time interval, that 0 < t < T < T0. Main theorems have been stated and the existence and uniqueness of the solution has been proven. Numeric approximation for the solution of the HJB equation has been studied and the convergence rate has been established. In this case, the convergence rate for the numerical scheme is super geometrical, i.e., more rapid than any geometrical ones. A special verification theorem for this case has been shown. In this chapter, we have studied the Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman (HJB) equation through the Feynman–Kac (FK) method. The existence and uniqueness theorem for the classical solution for the HJB equation has been shown. Chapter 3 extended our approach from the previous chapter of the optimal consumption/investment strategies for the power utility functions for any time interval where the power utility coefficient γ should be less than 1/4. Chapter 4 addressed the optimal consumption/investment problem for logarithmic utility functions for multivariate OU process in the base of the stochastic dynamical programming method. As well it has been shown a special verification theorem for this case. It has been demonstrated the existence and uniqueness theorem for the classical solution for the HJB equation in explicit form. As a consequence the optimal financial strategies were constructed. Some examples have been stated for a scalar case and for a multivariate case with diagonal volatility. Stochastic volatility markets has been considered in Chapter 5 as an extension for the previous chapter of optimization problem for the logarithmic utility functions. Chapter 6 proposed some auxiliary results and theorems that are necessary for the work. Numerical simulations has been provided in Chapter 7 for power and logarithmic utility functions. The fixed point value h for power utility has been presented. We study the constructed strategies by numerical simulations for different parameters. The value function for the logarithmic utilities has been shown too. Finally, Chapter 8 reflected the results and possible limitations or solutions

Economic uncertainty may affect significantly people’s behavior and hence macroeconomic variables. It is thus important to understand how people behave in presence of different kinds of economic risk. The present dissertation focuses therefore on the impact of the uncertainty in capital and labor income on the individual saving behavior. The underlying uncertain variables are here modeled as stochastic processes that each obey a specific stochastic differential equation, where uncertainty stems either from Poisson or Lévy processes. The results on the optimal behavior are derived by maximizing the individual expected lifetime utility. The first chapter is concerned with the necessary mathematical tools, the change-of-variables formula and the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation under Poisson uncertainty. We extend their possible field of application in order make them appropriate for the analysis of the dynamic stochastic optimization problems occurring in the following chapters and elsewhere. The second chapter considers an optimum-saving problem with labor income, where capital risk stems from asset prices that follow geometric L´evy processes. Chapter 3, finally, studies the optimal saving behavior if agents face not only risk but also uncertain spells of unemployment. To this end, we turn back to Poisson processes, which here are used to model properly the separation and matching process.