Risk measures connect probability theory or statistics to optimization, particularly to convex optimization. They are nowadays standard in applications of finance and in insurance involving risk aversion. This paper investigates a wide class of risk measures on Orlicz spaces. The characterizing function describes the decision maker's risk assessment towards increasing losses. We link the risk measures to a crucial formula developed by Rockafellar for the Average Value-at-Risk based on convex duality, which is fundamental in corresponding optimization problems. We characterize the dual and provide complementary representations.
Risk measures for multivariate financial positions are studied in a utility-based framework. Under a certain incomplete preference relation, shortfall and divergence risk measures are defined as the optimal values of specific set minimization problems. The dual relationship between these two classes of multivariate risk measures is constructed via a recent Lagrange duality for set optimization. In particular, it is shown that a shortfall risk measure can be written as an intersection over a family of divergence risk measures indexed by a scalarization parameter. Examples include set-valued ver…
A one-to-one correspondence is drawn between law invariant risk measures and divergences, which we define as functionals of pairs of probability measures on arbitrary standard Borel spaces satisfying a few natural properties. Divergences include many classical information divergence measures, such as relative entropy and $f$-divergences. Several properties of divergence and their duality with law invariant risk measures are developed, most notably relating their chain rules or additivity properties with certain notions of time consistency for dynamic law invariant risk measures known as accept…
The family of admissible positions in a transaction costs model is a random closed set, which is convex in case of proportional transaction costs. However, the convexity fails, e.g. in case of fixed transaction costs or when only a finite number of transfers are possible. The paper presents an approach to measure risks of such positions based on the idea of considering all selections of the portfolio and checking if one of them is acceptable. Properties and basic examples of risk measures of non-convex portfolios are presented.
We propose a novel class of convex risk measures, based on the concept of the Fréchet mean, designed in order to handle uncertainty which arises from multiple information sources regarding the risk factors of interest. The proposed risk measures robustly characterize the exposure of the firm, by filtering out appropriately the partial information available in individual sources into an aggregate model for the risk factors of interest. Importantly, the proposed risks can be expressed in closed analytic forms allowing for interesting qualitative interpretations as well as comparative statics and…
在本论文中，我们刻画了在分布水平上具有凸水平集的律确定的凸风险测度。通过放松Weber（2006）的假设，我们证明了这些风险度量可以被识别为一类广义短缺风险度量。作为一个直接的结果，我们能够扩展Ziegel（2014）和Bellini and Biggini（2014）关于凸可引出风险度量的结果，并确认期望值是唯一可引出的一致性风险度量。此外，我们提供了一个简单的表征的鲁棒性凸风险措施的弱概念的混合连续性。
We compare two models of corporate default by calculating the Jeffreys-Kullback-Leibler divergence between their predicted default probabilities when asset correlations are either high or low. Our main results show that the divergence between the two models increases in highly correlated, volatile, and large markets, but that it is closer to zero in small markets, when asset correlations are low and firms are highly leveraged. These findings suggest that during periods of financial instability the single-and multi-factor models of corporate default will generate increasingly inconsistent predi…
Our paper contributes to the theory of conditional risk measures and conditional certainty equivalents. We adopt a random modular approach which proved to be effective in the study of modular convex analysis and conditional risk measures. In particular, we study the conditional counterpart of optimized certainty equivalents. In the process, we provide representation results for niveloids in the conditional $L^{\infty}$-space. By employing such representation results we retrieve a conditional version of the variational formula for optimized certainty equivalents. In conclusion, we apply this fo…
It is well known that Expected Shortfall (also called Average Value-at-Risk) is a convex risk measure, i. e. Expected Shortfall of a convex linear combination of arbitrary risk positions is not greater than a convex linear combination with the same weights of Expected Shortfalls of the same risk positions. In this short paper we prove that Expected Shortfall is a concave risk measure with respect to probability distributions, i. e. Expected Shortfall of a finite mixture of arbitrary risk positions is not lower than the linear combination of Expected Shortfalls of the same risk positions (with …
In this paper, we study general monetary risk measures (without any convexity or weak convexity). A monetary (respectively, positively homogeneous) risk measure can be characterized as the lower envelope of a family of convex (respectively, coherent) risk measures. The proof does not depend on but easily leads to the classical representation theorems for convex and coherent risk measures. When the law-invariance and the SSD (second-order stochastic dominance)-consistency are involved, it is not the convexity (respectively, coherence) but the comonotonic convexity (respectively, comonotonic coh…
The theory of convex risk functions has now been well established as the basis for identifying the families of risk functions that should be used in risk averse optimization problems. Despite its theoretical appeal, the implementation of a convex risk function remains difficult, as there is little guidance regarding how a convex risk function should be chosen so that it also well represents one's own risk preferences. In this paper, we address this issue through the lens of inverse optimization. Specifically, given solution data from some (forward) risk-averse optimization problems we develop …
This paper introduces and fully characterizes the novel class of quasi-logconvex measures of risk, to stand on equal footing with the rich class of quasi-convex measures of risk. Quasi-logconvex risk measures naturally generalize logconvex return risk measures, just like quasi-convex risk measures generalize convex monetary risk measures. We establish their dual representation and analyze their taxonomy in a few (sub)classification results. Furthermore, we characterize quasi-logconvex risk measures in terms of properties of families of acceptance sets and provide their law-invariant representa…
We consider the problem of finding Pareto-optimal allocations of risk among finitely many agents. The associated individual risk measures are law invariant, but with respect to agent-dependent and potentially heterogeneous reference probability measures. Moreover, we assume that the individual risk assessments are consistent with the respective second-order stochastic dominance relations. We do not assume their convexity though. A simple sufficient condition for the existence of Pareto optima is provided. The proof combines local comonotone improvement with a Dieudonné-type argument, which als…
We develop an approach for solving time-consistent risk-sensitive stochastic optimization problems using model-free reinforcement learning (RL). Specifically, we assume agents assess the risk of a sequence of random variables using dynamic convex risk measures. We employ a time-consistent dynamic programming principle to determine the value of a particular policy, and develop policy gradient update rules that aid in obtaining optimal policies. We further develop an actor-critic style algorithm using neural networks to optimize over policies. Finally, we demonstrate the performance and flexibil…
Given an n-dimensional stochastic process X driven by P-Brownian motions and Poisson random measures, we seek the probability measure Q, with minimal relative entropy to P, such that the Q-expectations of some terminal and running costs are constrained. We prove existence and uniqueness of the optimal probability measure, derive the explicit form of the measure change, and characterise the optimal drift and compensator adjustments under the optimal measure. We provide an analytical solution for Value-at-Risk (quantile) constraints, discuss how to perturb a Brownian motion to have arbitrary var…
