Financial/Actuarial Mathematics Seminar



Minimizing the Probability of Ruin When the Consumption is Ratcheted

Virginia Young

Department of Mathematics, University of Michigan

October 2 (Thursday), 2008



Abstract

We assume that an agent's rate of consumption is ratcheted; that is, it forms a nondecreasing process. We assume that the agent invests in a financial market with one riskless and one risky asset, with the latter's price following geometric Brownian motion as in the Black-Scholes model. Given the rate of consumption, we act as financial advisers and find the optimal investment strategy for the agent who wishes to minimize his probability of ruin. To solve this minimization problem, we use techniques from stochastic optimal control. (This is a joint work with Erhan Bayraktar.)


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