In portfolio optimization problems, the minimum expected investment risk is not always smaller than the expected minimal investment risk. That is, using a well-known approach from operations research, it is possible to derive a strategy that minimizes the expected investment risk, but this...

Predictions are issued on the basis of certain information. If the forecasting mechanisms are correctly specified, a larger amount of available information should lead to better forecasts. For point forecasts, we show how the effect of increasing the information set can be quantified by using...

We provide an explicit aggregation in the neoclassical growth model with aggregate shocks and uninsurable employment risk. We show there are two restrictions on the unemployment shock for approximate aggregation to occur. First the probability of unemployment must be positive for each agent in...

Gambles are random variables that model possible changes in monetary wealth. Classic decision theory transforms money into utility through a utility function and defines the value of a gamble as the expectation value of utility changes. Utility functions aim to capture individual psychological...

We study a stochastic game where one player tries to find a strategy such that the state process reaches a target of controlled-loss-type, no matter which action is chosen by the other player. We provide, in a general setup, a relaxed geometric dynamic programming principle for this problem and...

An agent-based model for financial markets has to incorporate two aspects: decision making and price formation. We introduce a simple decision model and consider its implications in two different pricing schemes. First, we study its parameter dependence within a supply-demand balance setting. We...

Reflective of income and wealth distributions, philanthropic gifting appears to follow an approximate power-law size distribution as measured by the size of gifts received by individual institutions. We explore the ecology of gifting by analysing data sets of individual gifts for a diverse group...

Notwithstanding almost forty years of efforts, the market for paintings still lacks a widely accepted price index. In this paper, we introduce a simple and intuitive metric to construct such index. Our metric is based on the price of a painting divided by its area. This formulation rests on a...

The inclusion of DVA in the fair-value of derivative transactions has now become standard accounting practice in most parts of the world. Furthermore, some sophisticated banks are including an FVA (Funding Valuation Adjustment), but since DVA can be interpreted as a funding benefit the...

We discuss modelling of SPX and DAX index option prices using the Shifted Log-Normal (SLN) model, (also known as Displaced Diffusion), and the SABR model. We found out that for SPX options, an example of strongly skewed option prices, SLN can produce a quite accurate fit. Moreover, for both...