Special Session 146: 

Risk Sensitive Portfolio Optimization with Regime-Switching and Default Contagion

Xiang Yu
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hong Kong
Co-Author(s):    Lijun Bo and Huafu Liao
Abstract:
We study th risk-sensitive portfolio allocation in a regime-switching credit market with default contagion. The state space of the Markovian regime-switching process is assumed to be a countably infinite set. To characterize the value function of the risk sensitive stochastic control problem, we investigate the corresponding recursive infinite-dimensional nonlinear dynamical programming equations (DPEs) based on default states. We propose to work in the following procedure: Applying the theory of the monotone dynamical system, we first establish the existence and uniqueness of classical solutions to the recursive DPEs by a truncation argument in the finite state space. Moreover, the associated optimal feedback strategy is characterized by developing a rigorous verification theorem. Building upon results in the first stage, we construct a sequence of approximating risk sensitive control problems with finite state space and prove that the resulting smooth value functions will converge to the classical solution of the original system of DPEs. The construction and approximation of the optimal feedback strategy for the original problem are also discussed. Some numerical results are presented to illustrate our analytical conclusions.