Ioannis Karatzas - Böcker

This book is designed as a text for graduate courses in stochastic processes. This book contains a detailed discussion of weak and strong solutions of stochastic differential equations and a study of local time for semimartingales, with special emphasis on the theory of Brownian local time.

Concerned with stable processes and other infinitely divisible models this volume collates articles covering a range of related topics. Issues covered include: results in heavy-tailed processes, the central limit problem; comparison and deviation problems; and probability and distrbution inequalities. Also included in the text are articles on: Markovian property and extreme values; interacting particle approximation, communication networks; the Italian problem; and global dependancy measure and prediction.

In the last twenty years extensive research has been devoted to a better understanding of the stable and other closely related infinitely divisible mod­ els. Stamatis Cambanis, a distinguished educator and researcher, played a special leadership role in the development of these research efforts, particu­ larly related to stable processes from the early seventies until his untimely death in April '95. This commemorative volume consists of a collection of research articles devoted to reviewing the state of the art of this and other rapidly developing research and to explore new directions of research in these fields. The volume is a tribute to the Life and Work of Stamatis by his students, friends, and colleagues whose personal and professional lives he has deeply touched through his generous insights and dedication to his profession. Before the idea of this volume was conceived, two conferences were held in the memory of Stamatis. The first was organized by the University of Athens and the Athens University of Economics and was held in Athens during December 18-19, 1995. The second was a significant part of a Spe­ cial IMS meeting held at the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill during October 17-19, 1996. It is the selfless effort of sev­ eral people that brought about these conferences. We believe that this is an appropriate place to acknowledge their effort; and on behalf of all the participants, we extend sincere thanks to all these persons.

This book develops a mathematical theory for finance, based on a simple and intuitive absence-of-arbitrage principle. This posits that it should not be possible to fund a non-trivial liability, starting with initial capital arbitrarily near zero. The principle is easy-to-test in specific models, as it is described in terms of the underlying market characteristics; it is shown to be equivalent to the existence of the so-called ""Kelly"" or growth-optimal portfolio, of the log-optimal portfolio, and of appropriate local martingale deflators. The resulting theory is powerful enough to treat in great generality the fundamental questions of hedging, valuation, and portfolio optimization.The book contains a considerable amount of new research and results, as well as a significant number of exercises. It can be used as a basic text for graduate courses in Probability and Stochastic Analysis, and in Mathematical Finance. No prior familiarity with finance is required, but it is assumed that readers have a good working knowledge of real analysis, measure theory, and of basic probability theory. Familiarity with stochastic analysis is also assumed, as is integration with respect to continuous semimartingales.

This monograph is a sequel to Brownian Motion and Stochastic Calculus by the same authors. Within the context of Brownian-motion-driven asset prices, it develops contingent claim pricing and optimal consumption/investment in both complete and incomplete markets.  The latter topic is extended to the study of complete market equilibrium, providing conditions for the existence and uniqueness of market prices which support trading by several heterogeneous agents. Although much of the incomplete-market material is available in research papers, these topics are treated for the first time in a unified manner. The book contains an extensive set of references and notes describing the field, including topics not treated in the text. This monograph should be of interest to researchers wishing to see advanced mathematics applied to finance. The material on optimal consumption and investment, leading to equilibrium, is addressed to the theoretical finance community. Thechapters on contingent claim valuation present techniques of practical importance, especially for pricing exotic options.The present corrected printing includes, besides other minor corrections, an important correction of Theorem 6.4 and a simplification of the proof of Lemma 6.5. Also available by Ioannis Karatzas and Steven E. Shreve, Brownian Motion and Stochastic Calculus, Second Edition, Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 1991, 470 pp., ISBN 0-387- 97655-8.