Abstract
Many risk-neutral pricing problems proposed in the finance literature do not admit closed-form expressions and have to be dealt with by solving the corresponding partial integro-differential equation. Often, these PIDEs have singular diffusion matrices and coefficients that are not Lipschitz-continuous up to the boundary. In addition, in general, boundary conditions are not specified. In this paper, we prove existence and uniqueness of (continuous) viscosity solutions for linear PIDEs with all the above features, under a Lyapunov-type condition. Our results apply to European and Asian option pricing, in jump-diffusion stochastic volatility and path-dependent volatility models. We verify our Lyapunov-type condition in several examples, including the arithmetic Asian option in the Heston model.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The Heston model is considered in Example 3.6 in Pascucci [28], but Assumption 3.3 is not satisfied as (3.9) does not hold.
Admissibility restrictions on the parameters required for the existence of an affine process are discussed, e.g., in Duffie et al. [14].
This condition ensures that the volatility process V is always positive if V 0 is positive; see Heston [20].
References
Alibaud, N.: Existence, uniqueness and regularity for nonlinear parabolic equations with nonlocal terms. Nonlinear Differ. Equ. Appl. 14, 259–289 (2007)
Alvarez, O., Tourin, A.: Viscosity solutions of nonlinear integro-differential equations. Ann. Inst. Henri Poincaré, Anal. Non Linéaire 13, 293–317 (1996)
Amadori, A.: Uniqueness and comparison properties of the viscosity solution to some singular HJB equations. Nonlinear Differ. Equ. Appl. 14, 391–409 (2007)
Bakshi, G., Cao, C., Chen, Z.: Empirical performance of alternative option pricing models. J. Finance 52, 2003–2049 (1997)
Bardi, M., Capuzzo Dolcetta, I.: Optimal Control and Viscosity Solutions of Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman Equations, Systems & Control: Foundations & Applications. Birkhäuser, Boston (1997)
Barles, G., Souganidis, P.E.: Convergence of approximation schemes for fully nonlinear equations. Asymptot. Anal. 4, 271–283 (1991)
Barucci, E., Polidoro, S., Vespri, V.: Some results on partial differential equations and Asian options. Math. Models Methods Appl. Sci. 11, 475–497 (2001)
Bates, D.S.: Jumps and stochastic volatility: Exchange rate processes implicit in Deutsche Mark options. Rev. Financ. Stud. 9, 69–107 (1996)
Bernaschi, M., Briani, M., Papi, M., Vergni, D.: Scenario-generation methods for an optimal public debt strategy. Quant. Finance 7, 217–229 (2007)
Crandall, M.G., Ishii, H., Lions, P.L.: User’s guide to viscosity solutions of second order partial differential equations. Bull. Am. Math. Soc. 27, 1–67 (1992)
Di Francesco, M., Pascucci, A.: On the complete model with stochastic volatility by Hobson and Rogers. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A 460, 3327–3338 (2004)
Di Francesco, M., Polidoro, S.: Schauder estimates, Harnack inequalities and Gaussian lower bound for Kolmogorv-type operators in non-divergence form. Adv. Differ. Equ. 11, 1261–1320 (2006)
Duffie, D., Pan, J., Singleton, K.: Transform analysis and asset pricing for affine jump-diffusions. Econometrica 68, 1343–1376 (2000)
Duffie, D., Filipović, D., Schachermayer, W.: Affine processes and applications in finance. Ann. Appl. Probab. 13, 984–1053 (2003)
Ekström, E., Tysk, J.: The Black–Scholes equation in stochastic volatility models. J. Math. Anal. Appl. 368, 498–507 (2010)
Ethier, S.N., Kurtz, T.G.: Markov Processes: Characterization and Convergence. Wiley, Hoboken (2005)
Falcone, M., Makridakis, C.: Numerical Methods for Viscosity Solutions and Applications. Series on Advances in Mathematics for Applied Sciences, vol. 59. World Scientific, River Edge (2001)
Fleming, W.H., Soner, M.: Controlled Markov Processes and Viscosity Solutions. Springer, New York (1993)
Has’minski, R.Z.: Stochastic Stability of Differential Equations. Sijthoff and Noordhoff, Alphen aan den Rijn (1980)
Heston, S.: A closed-form solution for options with stochastic volatility with applications to bond and currency options. Rev. Financ. Stud. 6, 327–343 (1993)
Hobson, D.G., Rogers, L.C.G.: Complete models with stochastic volatility. Math. Finance 8, 27–48 (1998)
Ishii, H., Kobayasi, K.: On the uniqueness and existence of solutions of fully nonlinear parabolic PDEs under the Osgood-type condition. Differ. Integral Equ. 7, 909–920 (1994)
Jakobsen, E.R., Karlsen, K.H.: Continuous dependence estimates for viscosity solutions of integro-PDEs. J. Differ. Equ. 212, 278–318 (2005)
Jakobsen, E.R., Karlsen, K.H.: A “maximum principle for semicontinuous functions” applicable to integro-partial differential equations. Nonlinear Differ. Equ. Appl. 13, 137–165 (2006)
Janson, S., Tysk, J.: Feynman–Kac formulas for Black–Scholes type operators. Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 38, 269–282 (2006)
Lando, D.: On Cox processes and credit risky securities. Rev. Deriv. Res. 2, 99–120 (1998)
Monti, L., Pascucci, A.: Obstacle problem for arithmetic Asian options. C. R. Math. Acad. Sci. Paris 347, 1443–1446 (2009)
Pascucci, A.: Free boundary and optimal stopping problems for American Asian options. Finance Stoch. 12, 21–41 (2008)
Pham, H.: Optimal stopping of controlled jump-diffusion processes: A viscosity solution approach. J. Math. Syst. Estim. Control 8, 1–27 (1998)
Rogers, L., Shi, Z.: The value of an Asian option. J. Appl. Probab. 32, 1077–1088 (1995)
Stroock, D., Varadhan, S.R.S.: Multidimensional Diffusion Processes. Springer, Berlin (1979)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Costantini, C., Papi, M. & D’Ippoliti, F. Singular risk-neutral valuation equations. Finance Stoch 16, 249–274 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00780-011-0166-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00780-011-0166-8
Keywords
- Degenerate integro-differential equations
- Viscosity solutions
- Asian options
- Stochastic volatility
- Jump-diffusion