Search Results
The invariant distribution of wealth and employment status in a small open economy with precautionary savings
2019, Bayer, Christian, Rendall, Alan D., Wälde, Klaus
We study optimal savings in continuous time with exogenous transitions between employment and unemployment as the only source of uncertainty in a small open economy. We prove the existence of an optimal consumption path. We exploit that the dynamics of consumption and wealth between jumps can be expressed as a Fuchsian system. We derive conditions under which an invariant joint distribution for the state variables, i.e., wealth and labour market status, exists and is unique. We also provide conditions under which the distribution of these variables converges to the invariant distribution. Our analysis relies on the notion of T-processes and applies results on the stability of Markovian processes from Meyn and Tweedie (1993a, b,c). © 2019 The Author(s)
Reinforced optimal control
2020, Bayer, Christian, Belomestny, Denis, Hager, Paul, Pigato, Paolo, Schoenmakers, John G. M., Spokoiny, Vladimir
Least squares Monte Carlo methods are a popular numerical approximation method for solving stochastic control problems. Based on dynamic programming, their key feature is the approximation of the conditional expectation of future rewards by linear least squares regression. Hence, the choice of basis functions is crucial for the accuracy of the method. Earlier work by some of us [Belomestny, Schoenmakers, Spokoiny, Zharkynbay, Commun. Math. Sci., 18(1):109?121, 2020] proposes to reinforce the basis functions in the case of optimal stopping problems by already computed value functions for later times, thereby considerably improving the accuracy with limited additional computational cost. We extend the reinforced regression method to a general class of stochastic control problems, while considerably improving the method?s efficiency, as demonstrated by substantial numerical examples as well as theoretical analysis.
Numerical smoothing with hierarchical adaptive sparse grids and quasi-Monte Carlo methods for efficient option pricing
2022, Bayer, Christian, Ben Hammouda, Chiheb, Tempone, Raúl F.
When approximating the expectation of a functional of a stochastic process, the efficiency and performance of deterministic quadrature methods, such as sparse grid quadrature and quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) methods, may critically depend on the regularity of the integrand. To overcome this issue and reveal the available regularity, we consider cases in which analytic smoothing cannot be performed, and introduce a novel numerical smoothing approach by combining a root finding algorithm with one-dimensional integration with respect to a single well-selected variable. We prove that under appropriate conditions, the resulting function of the remaining variables is a highly smooth function, potentially affording the improved efficiency of adaptive sparse grid quadrature (ASGQ) and QMC methods, particularly when combined with hierarchical transformations (i.e., Brownian bridge and Richardson extrapolation on the weak error). This approach facilitates the effective treatment of high dimensionality. Our study is motivated by option pricing problems, and our focus is on dynamics where the discretization of the asset price is necessary. Based on our analysis and numerical experiments, we show the advantages of combining numerical smoothing with the ASGQ and QMC methods over ASGQ and QMC methods without smoothing and the Monte Carlo approach.
Randomized optimal stopping algorithms and their convergence analysis
2020, Bayer, Christian, Belomestny, Denis, Hager, Paul, Pigato, Paolo, Schoenmakers, John G. M.
In this paper we study randomized optimal stopping problems and consider corresponding forward and backward Monte Carlo based optimization algorithms. In particular we prove the convergence of the proposed algorithms and derive the corresponding convergence rates.
A regularity structure for rough volatility
2019, Bayer, Christian, Friz, Peter K., Gassiat, Paul, Martin, Jorg, Stemper, Benjamin
A new paradigm has emerged recently in financial modeling: rough (stochastic) volatility. First observed by Gatheral et al. in high-frequency data, subsequently derived within market microstructure models, rough volatility captures parsimoniously key-stylized facts of the entire implied volatility surface, including extreme skews (as observed earlier by Alòs et al.) that were thought to be outside the scope of stochastic volatility models. On the mathematical side, Markovianity and, partially, semimartingality are lost. In this paper, we show that Hairer's regularity structures, a major extension of rough path theory, which caused a revolution in the field of stochastic partial differential equations, also provide a new and powerful tool to analyze rough volatility models.
Hierarchical adaptive sparse grids and quasi Monte Carlo for option pricing under the rough Bergomi model
2019, Bayer, Christian, Hammouda, Chiheb Ben, Tempone, Raúl F.
The rough Bergomi (rBergomi) model, introduced recently in [4], is a promising rough volatility model in quantitative finance. It is a parsimonious model depending on only three parameters, and yet exhibits remarkable fit to empirical implied volatility surfaces. In the absence of analytical European option pricing methods for the model, and due to the non-Markovian nature of the fractional driver, the prevalent option is to use the Monte Carlo (MC) simulation for pricing. Despite recent advances in the MC method in this context, pricing under the rBergomi model is still a timeconsuming task. To overcome this issue, we design a novel, hierarchical approach, based on i) adaptive sparse grids quadrature (ASGQ), and ii) quasi Monte Carlo (QMC). Both techniques are coupled with Brownian bridge construction and Richardson extrapolation. By uncovering the available regularity, our hierarchical methods demonstrate substantial computational gains with respect to the standard MC method, when reaching a sufficiently small relative error tolerance in the price estimates across different parameter constellations, even for very small values of the Hurst parameter. Our work opens a new research direction in this field, i.e., to investigate the performance of methods other than Monte Carlo for pricing and calibrating under the rBergomi model.
Pricing high-dimensional Bermudan options with hierarchical tensor formats
2021, Bayer, Christian, Eigel, Martin, Sallandt, Leon, Trunschke, Philipp
An efficient compression technique based on hierarchical tensors for popular option pricing methods is presented. It is shown that the ``curse of dimensionality" can be alleviated for the computation of Bermudan option prices with the Monte Carlo least-squares approach as well as the dual martingale method, both using high-dimensional tensorized polynomial expansions. This discretization allows for a simple and computationally cheap evaluation of conditional expectations. Complexity estimates are provided as well as a description of the optimization procedures in the tensor train format. Numerical experiments illustrate the favourable accuracy of the proposed methods. The dynamical programming method yields results comparable to recent Neural Network based methods.
Stability of deep neural networks via discrete rough paths
2020, Bayer, Christian, Friz, Peter, Tapia, Nikolas
Using rough path techniques, we provide a priori estimates for the output of Deep Residual Neural Networks. In particular we derive stability bounds in terms of the total p-variation of trained weights for any p ≥ 1.
Pricing options under rough volatility with backward SPDEs
2020, Bayer, Christian, Qiu, Jinniao, Yao, Yao
In this paper, we study the option pricing problems for rough volatility models. As the framework is non-Markovian, the value function for a European option is not deterministic; rather, it is random and satisfies a backward stochastic partial differential equation (BSPDE). The existence and uniqueness of weak solutions is proved for general nonlinear BSPDEs with unbounded random leading coefficients whose connections with certain forward-backward stochastic differential equations are derived as well. These BSPDEs are then used to approximate American option prices. A deep learning-based method is also investigated for the numerical approximations to such BSPDEs and associated non-Markovian pricing problems. Finally, the examples of rough Bergomi type are numerically computed for both European and American options.
Optimal stopping with signatures
2020, Bayer, Christian, Hager, Paul, Riedel, Sebastian, Schoenmakers, John G. M.
We propose a new method for solving optimal stopping problems (such as American option pricing in finance) under minimal assumptions on the underlying stochastic process. We consider classic and randomized stopping times represented by linear functionals of the associated rough path signature, and prove that maximizing over the class of signature stopping times, in fact, solves the original optimal stopping problem. Using the algebraic properties of the signature, we can then recast the problem as a (deterministic) optimization problem depending only on the (truncated) expected signature. The only assumption on the process is that it is a continuous (geometric) random rough path. Hence, the theory encompasses processes such as fractional Brownian motion which fail to be either semi-martingales or Markov processes.