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Proving regularity of the minimal probability of ruin via a game of stopping and control

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  • Erhan Bayraktar
  • Virginia Young

Abstract

We reveal an interesting convex duality relationship between two problems: (a) minimizing the probability of lifetime ruin when the rate of consumption is stochastic and when the individual can invest in a Black-Scholes financial market; (b) a controller-and-stopper problem, in which the controller controls the drift and volatility of a process in order to maximize a running reward based on that process, and the stopper chooses the time to stop the running reward and rewards the controller a final amount at that time. Our primary goal is to show that the minimal probability of ruin, whose stochastic representation does not have a classical form as does the utility maximization problem (i.e., the objective's dependence on the initial values of the state variables is implicit), is the unique classical solution of its Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation, which is a non-linear boundary-value problem. We establish our goal by exploiting the convex duality relationship between (a) and (b).
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Suggested Citation

  • Erhan Bayraktar & Virginia Young, 2011. "Proving regularity of the minimal probability of ruin via a game of stopping and control," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 785-818, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:finsto:v:15:y:2011:i:4:p:785-818
    DOI: 10.1007/s00780-011-0160-1
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    1. Browne, S., 1995. "Optimal Investment Policies for a Firm with a Random Risk Process: Exponential Utility and Minimizing the Probability of Ruin," Papers 95-08, Columbia - Graduate School of Business.
    2. Virginia Young, 2004. "Optimal Investment Strategy to Minimize the Probability of Lifetime Ruin," North American Actuarial Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(4), pages 106-126.
    3. Moshe A. Milevsky & Kristen S. Moore & Virginia R. Young, 2006. "Asset Allocation And Annuity‐Purchase Strategies To Minimize The Probability Of Financial Ruin," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(4), pages 647-671, October.
    4. Bayraktar, Erhan & Young, Virginia R., 2007. "Minimizing the probability of lifetime ruin under borrowing constraints," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 196-221, July.
    5. Milevsky, Moshe Arye & Ho, Kwok & Robinson, Chris, 1997. "Asset Allocation via the Conditional First Exit Time or How to Avoid Outliving Your Money," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 53-70, July.
    6. Sid Browne, 1995. "Optimal Investment Policies for a Firm With a Random Risk Process: Exponential Utility and Minimizing the Probability of Ruin," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 20(4), pages 937-958, November.
    7. Moshe Milevsky & Chris Robinson, 2000. "Self-Annuitization and Ruin in Retirement," North American Actuarial Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(4), pages 112-124.
    8. Bayraktar, Erhan & Young, Virginia R., 2008. "Mutual fund theorems when minimizing the probability of lifetime ruin," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 69-78, June.
    9. Darrell Duffie & Thaleia Zariphopoulou, 1993. "Optimal Investment With Undiversifiable Income Risk," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(2), pages 135-148, April.
    10. Erhan Bayraktar & Virginia Young, 2007. "Correspondence between lifetime minimum wealth and utility of consumption," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 213-236, April.
    11. Duffie, Darrell & Fleming, Wendell & Soner, H. Mete & Zariphopoulou, Thaleia, 1997. "Hedging in incomplete markets with HARA utility," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 21(4-5), pages 753-782, May.
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    Cited by:

    1. Bayraktar, Erhan & Young, Virginia R., 2008. "Maximizing utility of consumption subject to a constraint on the probability of lifetime ruin," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 204-212, December.
    2. Bayraktar, Erhan & Young, Virginia R., 2008. "Mutual fund theorems when minimizing the probability of lifetime ruin," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 69-78, June.
    3. Bayraktar, Erhan & Hu, Xueying & Young, Virginia R., 2011. "Minimizing the probability of lifetime ruin under stochastic volatility," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 194-206, September.
    4. Angoshtari, Bahman & Bayraktar, Erhan & Young, Virginia R., 2016. "Minimizing the probability of lifetime drawdown under constant consumption," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 210-223.
    5. Erhan Bayraktar & Asaf Cohen, 2015. "Risk Sensitive Control of the Lifetime Ruin Problem," Papers 1503.05769, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2016.
    6. Gaïgi, M’hamed & Ly Vath, Vathana & Scotti, Simone, 2022. "Optimal harvesting under marine reserves and uncertain environment," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 301(3), pages 1181-1194.
    7. Erhan Bayraktar & Yu-Jui Huang, 2010. "On the Multi-Dimensional Controller and Stopper Games," Papers 1009.0932, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2013.
    8. Frank Thomas Seifried, 2010. "Optimal Investment for Worst-Case Crash Scenarios: A Martingale Approach," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 35(3), pages 559-579, August.
    9. Luciano Campi & Davide Santis, 2020. "Nonzero-Sum Stochastic Differential Games Between an Impulse Controller and a Stopper," Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 186(2), pages 688-724, August.
    10. Erhan Bayraktar & Yuchong Zhang, 2014. "Stochastic Perron's Method for the Probability of lifetime ruin problem under transaction costs," Papers 1404.7406, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2014.
    11. Erhan Bayraktar & Yuchong Zhang, 2014. "Minimizing the Probability of Lifetime Ruin Under Ambiguity Aversion," Papers 1402.1809, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2014.
    12. Hernández-Hernández, Daniel & Yamazaki, Kazutoshi, 2015. "Games of singular control and stopping driven by spectrally one-sided Lévy processes," Stochastic Processes and their Applications, Elsevier, vol. 125(1), pages 1-38.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Probability of lifetime ruin; Stochastic games; Optimal stopping; Optimal investment; Viscosity solution; Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equation; Variational inequality; 93E20; 91B28; 60G40; G11; C61;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis

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