The martingale comparison method is extended to derive comparison results for path-independent functions for general semimartingales. Our approach allows to dismiss with the Markovian assumption on one of the processes made in previous literature. Main ingredients of the comparison method are extensions of the Kolmogorov backwards equation to the non-Markovian case. Putting the comparison processes on the same stochastic basis allows by means of Itô's formula applied to the propagation operator to conclude the comparison of the processes from the comparison of the semimartingale characteristics.
Based on an extension of the martingale comparison method some comparison results for path-dependent functions of semimartingales are established. The proof makes essential use of the functional Itô calculus. A main tool is an extension of the Kolmogorov backwards equation to path-dependent functions. The paper also derives criteria for the regularity conditions of the comparison theorems and discusses applications as to the comparison of Asian options for semimartingale models.
We prove that typical (in the model-free finance setting) price paths with jumps may be uniformly approximated with accuracy $c>0$ by paths whose total variation is of order $1/c.$ A more precise result is obtained for semimartingales with jumps.
For a real càdlàg path $x$ we define sequence of semi-explicit quantities, which do not depend on any partitions and such that whenever $x$ is a path of a càdlàg semimartingale then these quantities tend a.s. to the continuous part of the quadratic variation of the semimartingale. Next, we derive several consequences of this result and propose a new approach to define Föllmer's pathwise integral.
In the spirit of Marcus canonical stochastic differential equations, we study a similar notion of rough differential equations (RDEs), notably dropping the assumption of continuity prevalent in the rough path literature. A new metric is exhibited in which the solution map is a continuous function of the driving rough path and a so-called path function, which directly models the effect of the jump on the system. In a second part, we show that general multidimensional semimartingales admit canonically defined rough path lifts. An extension of Lépingle's BDG inequality to this setting is given, a…
We extend the class of semimartingales in a natural way. This allows us to incorporate processes having paths that leave the state space R^d. In particular Markov processes related to sub-Markovian kernels, but also non-Markovian processes with path-dependent behavior. By carefully distinguishing between two killing states, we are able to introduce a fourth semimartingale characteristic which generalizes the fourth part of the Lévy quadruple. Using the probabilistic symbol, we analyze the close relationship between the generators of certain Markov processes with killing and their (now four) se…
In this paper, we derive comparison results for terminal values of $d$-dimensional special semimartingales and also for finite-dimensional distributions of multivariate Lévy processes. The comparison is with respect to nondecreasing, (increasing) convex, (increasing) directionally convex and (increasing) supermodular functions. We use three different approaches. In the first approach, we give sufficient conditions on the local predictable characteristics that imply ordering of terminal values of semimartingales. This generalizes some recent convex comparison results of exponential models in [M…
We show that the sequential closure of a family of probability measures on the canonical space of c{à}dl{à}g paths satisfying Stricker's uniform tightness condition is a weak${}^*$ compact set of semimartingale measures in the pairing of the Riesz representation theorem under topological assumptions on the path space. Similar results are obtained for quasi- and supermartingales under analogous conditions. In particular, we give a full characterization of the strongest topology on the Skorokhod space for which these results are true.
Let $X$ be the unique normal martingale such that $X_0=0$ and \[\mathrm{d}[X]_t=(1-t-X_{t-}) \mathrm{d}X_t+\mathrm{d}t\] and let $Y_t:=X_t+t$ for all $t\geq 0$; the semimartingale $Y$ arises in quantum probability, where it is the monotone-independent analogue of the Poisson process. The trajectories of $Y$ are examined and various probabilistic properties are derived; in particular, the level set $\{t\geq 0\dvt Y_t=1\}$ is shown to be non-empty, compact, perfect and of zero Lebesgue measure. The local times of $Y$ are found to be trivial except for that at level 1; consequently, the jumps of …
A comparison principle for stochastic integro-differential equations driven by Levy processes is proved. This result is obtained via an extension of an Ito formula from [11] for the square of the norm of the positive part of $L_2-$valued, continuous semimartingales, to the case of discontinuous semimartingales.
We establish a new scale of $p$-variation estimates for martingale paraproducts, martingale transforms, and Itô integrals, of relevance in rough paths theory, stochastic, and harmonic analysis. As an application, we introduce rough semimartingales, a common generalization of classical semimartingales and (controlled) rough paths, and their integration theory.
Three concepts of local times for deterministic c{à}dl{à}g paths are developed and the corresponding pathwise Tanaka--Meyer formulae are provided. For semimartingales, it is shown that their sample paths a.s. satisfy all three pathwise definitions of local times and that all coincide with the classical semimartingale local time. In particular, this demonstrates that each definition constitutes a legit pathwise counterpart of probabilistic local times. The last pathwise construction presented in the paper expresses local times in terms of normalized numbers of interval crossings and does not de…
Comparison results for Markov processes w.r.t. function class induced (integral) stochastic orders have a long history. The most general results so far for this problem have been obtained based on the theory of evolution systems on Banach spaces. In this paper we transfer the martingale comparison method, known for the comparison of semimartingales to Markovian semimartingales, to general Markov processes. The basic step of this martingale approach is the derivation of the supermartingale property of the linking process, giving a link between the processes to be compared. In this paper this pr…
We derive a functional change of variable formula for {\it non-anticipative} functionals defined on the space of right continuous paths with left limits. The functional is only required to possess certain directional derivatives, which may be computed pathwise. Our results lead to functional extensions of the Ito formula for a large class of stochastic processes, including semimartingales and Dirichlet processes. In particular, we show the stability of the class of semimartingales under certain functional transformations. Keywords: change of variable formula, functional derivative, functional …
We extend the Itō formula \cite{MR1837298}*{Theorem 2.3} for semimartingales with rcll paths. We also comment on Local time process of such semimartingales. We apply the Itō formula to Lévy processes to obtain existence of solutions to certain classes of stochastic differential equations in the Hermite-Sobolev spaces.
For any real-valued stochastic process $X$ with cŕdlŕg paths we define non-empty family of processes which have locally finite total variation, have jumps of the same order as the process $X$ and uniformly approximate its paths on compacts. The application of the defined class is the definition of stochastic integral with semimartingale integrand and integrator as a limit of pathwise Lebesgue-Stieltjes integrals. This construction leads to the stochastic integral with some correction term (different from the Stratonovich integral). We compare the obtained result with classical results of Wong-…
In the note added in proof of the seminal paper [Groups of diffeomorphisms andthe motion of an incompressible fluid, Ann. of Math. 92 (1970), 102-163], Ebinand Marsden introduced the so-called correct Laplacian for the Navier-Stokes equationon a compact Riemannian manifold. In the spirit of Brenier's generalized flows forthe Euler equation, we introduce a class of semimartingales on a compact Riemannianmanifold. We prove that these semimartingales are critical points to the correspondingkinetic energy if and only if its drift term solves weakly the Navier-Stokes equationdefined with Ebin-Marsd…
In this paper we introduce a model, the stochastic fractional delay differential equation (SFDDE), which is based on the linear stochastic delay differential equation and produces stationary processes with hyperbolically decaying autocovariance functions. The model departs from the usual way of incorporating this type of long-range dependence into a short-memory model as it is obtained by applying a fractional filter to the drift term rather than to the noise term. The advantages of this approach are that the corresponding long-range dependent solutions are semimartingales and the local behavi…
Stricker's theorem states that a Gaussian process is a semimartingale in its natural filtration if and only if it is the sum of an independent increment Gaussian process and a Gaussian process of finite variation, see [1983, Z. Wahrsch. Verw. Gebiete 64(3)]. We consider extensions of this result to non Gaussian infinitely divisible processes. First we show that the class of infinitely divisible semimartingales is so large that the natural analog of Stricker's theorem fails to hold. Then, as the main result, we prove that an infinitely divisible semimartingale relative to the filtration generat…
Based on a dyadic approximation of Itô integrals, we show the existence of Itô càdlàg rough paths above general semimartingales, suitable Gaussian processes and non-negative typical price paths. Furthermore, Lyons-Victoir extension theorem for càdlàg paths is presented, stating that every càdlàg path of finite $p$-variation can be lifted to a rough path.
In this paper we explain how the notion of ''weak Dirichlet process'' is the suitable generalization of the one of semimartingale with jumps. For such a process we provide a unique decomposition which is new also for semimartingales: in particular we introduce ''characteristics'' for weak Dirichlet processes. We also introduce a weak concept (in law) of finite quadratic variation. We investigate a set of new useful chain rules and we discuss a general framework of (possibly path-dependent with jumps) martingale problems with a set of examples of SDEs with jumps driven by a distributional drift…
We prove existence and uniqueness of strong solutions for a class of semilinear stochastic evolution equations driven by general Hilbert space-valued semimartingales, with drift equal to the sum of a linear maximal monotone operator in variational form and of the superposition operator associated to a random time-dependent monotone function defined on the whole real line. Such a function is only assumed to satisfy a very mild symmetry-like condition, but its rate of growth towards infinity can be arbitrary. Moreover, the noise is of multiplicative type and can be path-dependent. The solution i…
Calculus via regularizations and rough paths are two methods to approach stochastic integration and calculus close to pathwise calculus. The origin of rough paths theory is purely deterministic, calculus via regularization is based on deterministic techniques but there is still a probability in the background. The goal of this paper is to establish a connection between stochastically controlled-type processes, a concept reminiscent from rough paths theory, and the so-called weak Dirichlet processes. As a by-product, we present the connection between rough and Stratonovich integrals for c{à}dl{…
In this note, we study the infinite-dimensional conditional laws of Brownian semistationary processes. Motivated by the fact that these processes are typically not semimartingales, we present sufficient conditions ensuring that a Brownian semistationary process has conditional full support, a property introduced by Guasoni, Rásonyi, and Schachermayer [Ann. Appl. Probab., 18 (2008) pp. 491--520]. By the results of Guasoni, Rásonyi, and Schachermayer, this property has two important implications. It ensures, firstly, that the process admits no free lunches under proportional transaction costs, a…
The Bessel process in low dimension (0 $\le$ $δ$ $\le$ 1) is not an It{ô} process and it is a semimartingale only in the cases $δ$ = 1 and $δ$ = 0. In this paper we first characterize it as the unique solution of an SDE with distributional drift or more precisely its related martingale problem. In a second part, we introduce a suitable notion of path-dependent Bessel processes and we characterize them as solutions of path-dependent SDEs with distributional drift.
Two problems are addressed for the path of certain stochastic processes: a) do they define currents? b) are these currents of a classical type? A general answer to question a) is given for processes like semimartingales or with Lyons-Zheng structure. As to question b), it is shown that Hölder continuous paths with exponent $γ> 1/2$ define integral flat chains.
We present a satisfactory definition of the important class of Lévy processes indexed by a general collection of sets. We use a new definition for increment stationarity of set-indexed processes to obtain different characterizations of this class. As an example, the set-indexed compound Poisson process is introduced. The set-indexed Lévy process is characterized by infinitely divisible laws and a Lévy-Khintchine representation. Moreover, the following concepts are discussed: projections on flows, Markov properties, and pointwise continuity. Finally the study of sample paths leads to a Lévy-Itô…
We consider the regularity of sample paths of Volterra processes. These processes are defined as stochastic integrals $$ M(t)=\int_{0}^{t}F(t,r)dX(r), \ \ t \in \mathds{R}_{+}, $$ where $X$ is a semimartingale and $F$ is a deterministic real-valued function. We derive the information on the modulus of continuity for these processes under regularity assumptions on the function $F$ and show that $M(t)$ has "worst" regularity properties at times of jumps of $X(t)$. We apply our results to obtain the optimal Hölder exponent for fractional Lévy processes.
We study a continuous pathwise local time of order p for continuous functions with finite p-th variation along a sequence of time partitions, for even integers p >= 2. With this notion, we establish a Tanaka-type change of variable formula, as well as Tanaka-Meyer formulae. We also derive some identities involving this high-order pathwise local time, each of which generalizes a corresponding identity from semimartingale theory. We then use collision local times between multiple functions of arbitrary regularity, to study the dynamics of ranked continuous functions of arbitrary regularity. We p…
We consider the moderate deviations behaviors for two (co-) volatility estima-tors: generalised bipower variation, Hayashi-Yoshida estimator. The results are obtained by using a new result about the moderate deviations principle for m-dependent random variables based on the Chen-Ledoux type condition. In the last decade there has been a considerable development of the asymptotic theory for processes observed at a high frequency. This was mainly motivated by financial applications , where the data, such as stock prices or currencies, are observed very frequently. As under the no-arbitrage assum…
We use the abstract method of (local) martingale problems in order to give criteria for convergence of stochastic processes. Extending previous notions, the formulation we use is neither restricted to Markov processes (or semimartingales), nor to continuous or cadlag paths. We illustrate our findings both, by finding generalizations of known results, and proving new results. For the latter, we work on processes with fixed times of discontinuity.
We introduce a variational theory for processes adapted to the multi-dimensional Brownian motion filtration that provides a differential structure allowing to describe infinitesimal evolution of Wiener functionals at very small scales. The main novel idea is to compute the "sensitivities" of processes, namely derivatives of martingale components and a weak notion of infinitesimal generators, via a finite-dimensional approximation procedure based on controlled inter-arrival times and approximating martingales. The theory comes with convergence results that allow to interpret a large class of Wi…
We define two new classes of stochastic processes, called tempered fractional Lévy process of the first and second kinds (TFLP and TFLP $I\!I$, respectively). TFLP and TFLP $I\!I$ make up very broad finite-variance, generally non-Gaussian families of transient anomalous diffusion models that are constructed by exponentially tempering the power law kernel in the moving average representation of a fractional Lévy process. Accordingly, the increment processes of TFLP and TFLP $I\!I$ display semi-long range dependence. We establish the sample path properties of TFLP and TFLP $I\!I$. We further use…
Optimal sample path properties of stochastic processes often involve generalized Hölder- or variation norms. Following a classical result of Taylor, the exact variation of Brownian motion is measured in terms of $ψ(x) \equiv $ $x^{2}/\log \log (1/x) $ near $0+$. Such $ψ$-variation results extend to classes of processes with values in abstract metric spaces. (No Gaussian or Markovian properties are assumed.) To establish integrability properties of the $ψ$-variation we turn to a large class of Gaussian rough paths (e.g. Brownian motion and Lévy's area viewed as a process in a Lie group) and pro…
We provide a new proof for regularity of affine processes on general state spaces by methods from the theory of Markovian semimartingales. On the way to this result we also show that the definition of an affine process, namely as stochastically continuous time-homogeneous Markov process with exponential affine Fourier-Laplace transform, already implies the existence of a càdlàg version. This was one of the last open issues in the fundaments of affine processes.
In this paper we study dynamic backward problems, with the computation of conditional expectations as a main objective, in a framework where the (forward) state process satisfies a Volterra type SDE, with fractional Brownian motion as a typical example. Such processes are neither Markov processes nor semimartingales, and most notably, they feature a certain time inconsistency which makes any direct application of Markovian ideas, such as flow properties, impossible without passing to a path-dependent framework. Our main result is a functional Itô formula, extending the seminal work of Dupire \…
In this paper, we introduce and develop the theory of semimartingale optimal transport in a path dependent setting. Instead of the classical constraints on marginal distributions, we consider a general framework of path dependent constraints. Duality results are established, representing the solution in terms of path dependent partial differential equations (PPDEs). Moreover, we provide a dimension reduction result based on the new notion of "semifiltrations", which identifies appropriate Markovian state variables based on the constraints and the cost function. Our technique is then applied to…
This paper discusses a new notion of quadratic variation and covariation for Banach space valued processes (not necessarily semimartingales) and related Itô formula. If $\X$ and $\Y$ take respectively values in Banach spaces $B_{1}$ and $B_{2}$ and $χ$ is a suitable subspace of the dual of the projective tensor product of $B_{1}$ and $B_{2}$ (denoted by $(B_{1}\hat{\otimes}_πB_{2})^{\ast}$), we define the so-called $χ$-covariation of $\X$ and $\Y$. If $\X=\Y$, the $χ$-covariation is called $χ$-quadratic variation. The notion of $χ$-quadratic variation is a natural generalization of the one int…
In this paper, we present a Longstaff-Schwartz-type algorithm for optimal stopping time problems based on the Brownian motion filtration. The algorithm is based on Leão, Ohashi and Russo and, in contrast to previous works, our methodology applies to optimal stopping problems for fully non-Markovian and non-semimartingale state processes such as functionals of path-dependent stochastic differential equations and fractional Brownian motions. Based on statistical learning theory techniques, we provide overall error estimates in terms of concrete approximation architecture spaces with finite Vapni…
This paper provides a probabilistic proof of the comparison result for viscosity solutions of path-dependent semilinear PDEs. We consider the notion of viscosity solutions introduced in \cite{EKTZ} which considers as test functions all those smooth processes which are tangent in mean. When restricted to the Markovian case, this definition induces a larger set of test functions, and reduces to the notion of stochastic viscosity solutions analyzed in \cite{BayraktarSirbu1,BayraktarSirbu2}. Our main result takes advantage of this enlargement of the test functions, and provides an easier proof of …
We consider the Stochastic Differential Equation $X_t = X_0 + \int_0^t b(s,X_s) ds + B_t$, in $\mathbb{R}^d$. We give an example of a drift $b$ such that there does not exist a weak solution, but there exists a solution for almost every realization of the Brownian motion $B$. We also give an explicit example of a drift such that the SDE has a pathwise unique weak solution, but path-by-path uniqueness (i.e. uniqueness of solutions to the ODE for almost every realization of the Brownian motion) is lost. These counterexamples extend the results obtained in arXiv:2001.02869 to dimension $d=1$.
Sufficient and necessary conditions are presented for the comparison theorem of path dependent $G$-SDEs. Different from the corresponding study in path independent $G$-SDEs, a probability method is applied to prove these results. Moreover, the results extend the ones in the linear expectation case.
In our previous paper [Ekren, Touzi and Zhang (2015)], we introduced a notion of viscosity solutions for fully nonlinear path-dependent PDEs, extending the semilinear case of Ekren et al. [Ann. Probab. 42 (2014) 204-236], which satisfies a partial comparison result under standard Lipshitz-type assumptions. The main result of this paper provides a full, well-posedness result under an additional assumption, formulated on some partial differential equation, defined locally by freezing the path. Namely, assuming further that such path-frozen standard PDEs satisfy the comparison principle and the P…
We prove a comparison result for viscosity solutions of (possibly degenerate) parabolic fully nonlinear path-dependent PDEs. In contrast with the previous result in Ekren, Touzi & Zhang, our conditions are easier to check and allow for the degenerate case, thus including first order path-dependent PDEs. Our argument follows the regularization method as introduced by Jensen, Lions & Souganidis in the corresponding finite-dimensional PDE setting. The present argument significantly simplifies the comparison proof in Ekren, Touzi & Zhang, but requires an $L^p-$type of continuity (with respect to t…
