Bernard Roynette - Böcker

Penalising a process is to modify its distribution with a limiting procedure, thus defining a new process whose properties differ somewhat from those of the original one. We are presenting a number of examples of such penalisations in the Brownian and Bessel processes framework. The Martingale theory plays a crucial role. A general principle for penalisation emerges from these examples. In particular, it is shown in the Brownian framework that a positive sigma-finite measure takes a large class of penalisations into account.

Discovered in the seventies, Black-Scholes formula continues to play a central role in Mathematical Finance. We recall this formula. Let (B ,t? 0; F ,t? 0, P) - t t note a standard Brownian motion with B = 0, (F ,t? 0) being its natural ?ltra- 0 t t tion. Let E := exp B? ,t? 0 denote the exponential martingale associated t t 2 to (B ,t? 0). This martingale, also called geometric Brownian motion, is a model t to describe the evolution of prices of a risky asset. Let, for every K? 0: + ? (t) :=E (K?E ) (0.1) K t and + C (t) :=E (E?K) (0.2) K t denote respectively the price of a European put, resp. of a European call, associated with this martingale. Let N be the cumulative distribution function of a reduced Gaussian variable: x 2 y 1 ? 2 ? N (x) := e dy. (0.3) 2? ?? The celebrated Black-Scholes formula gives an explicit expression of? (t) and K C (t) in terms ofN : K ? ? log(K) t log(K) t ? (t)= KN ? + ?N ? ? (0.4) K t 2 t 2 and ? ?

We call peacock an integrable process which is increasing in the convex order; such a notion plays an important role in Mathematical Finance. A deep theorem due to Kellerer states that a process is a peacock if and only if it has the same one-dimensional marginals as a martingale. Such a martingale is then said to be associated to this peacock.In this monograph, we exhibit numerous examples of peacocks and associated martingales with the help of different methods: construction of sheets, time reversal, time inversion, self-decomposability, SDE, Skorokhod embeddings. They are developed in eight chapters, with about a hundred of exercises.