A locally-built, LLM-digested index of recent arXiv papers in quant finance, geometry/topology, and statistical ML — keyword search served straight from SQLite on this machine.
Motivated by applications in clinical trials and finance, we study the problem of online convex optimization (with bandit feedback) where the decision maker is risk-averse. We provide two algorithms to solve this problem. The first one is a descent-type algorithm which is easy to implement. The second algorithm, which …
In this paper, we study multi-armed bandit problems in explore-then-commit setting. In our proposed explore-then-commit setting, the goal is to identify the best arm after a pure experimentation (exploration) phase and exploit it once or for a given finite number of times. We identify that although the arm with the hig…
We consider the problem of minimizing the regret in stochastic multi-armed bandit, when the measure of goodness of an arm is not the mean return, but some general function of the mean and the variance.We characterize the conditions under which learning is possible and present examples for which no natural algorithm can…
We introduce the functional bandit problem, where the objective is to find an arm that optimises a known functional of the unknown arm-reward distributions. These problems arise in many settings such as maximum entropy methods in natural language processing, and risk-averse decision-making, but current best-arm identif…
Online learning has traditionally focused on the expected rewards. In this paper, a risk-averse online learning problem under the performance measure of the mean-variance of the rewards is studied. Both the bandit and full information settings are considered. The performance of several existing policies is analyzed, an…
The goal of counterfactual learning for statistical machine translation (SMT) is to optimize a target SMT system from logged data that consist of user feedback to translations that were predicted by another, historic SMT system. A challenge arises by the fact that risk-averse commercial SMT systems deterministically lo…
We propose and analyze StoROO, an algorithm for risk optimization on stochastic black-box functions derived from StoOO. Motivated by risk-averse decision making fields like agriculture, medicine, biology or finance, we do not focus on the mean payoff but on generic functionals of the return distribution. We provide a g…
Different models of capital exchange among economic agents have been proposed recently trying to explain the emergence of Pareto's wealth power law distribution. One important factor to be considered is the existence of risk aversion. In this paper we study a model where agents posses different levels of risk aversion,…
Robo-advisors estimate clients' risk aversion using interactive questionnaires.
problem Estimating risk aversion of non-expert clients using adaptive questionnaires.
method Model risk aversion with cost functions and spectral risk measures. Use inverse reinforcement learning to design questions maximizing distinguishing power.
result Designing questions by maximizing distinguishing power achieves satisfactory accuracy in learning risk aversion with fewer than 50 questions.
Risk aversion is a key element of utility maximizing hedge strategies; however, it has typically been assigned an arbitrary value in the literature. This paper instead applies a GARCH-in-Mean (GARCH-M) model to estimate a time-varying measure of risk aversion that is based on the observed risk preferences of energy hed…
In this paper we extend the investigation into the transition from sure to probabilistic sniping as introduced in Menkveld and Zoican \cite{mz2017}. In that paper, the authors introduce a stylized version of a competitive game in which high frequency traders (HFTs) interact with each other and liquidity traders. The au…
The standard asset pricing models (the CCAPM and the Epstein-Zin non-expected utility model) counterintuitively predict that equilibrium asset prices can rise if the representative agent's risk aversion increases. If the income effect, which implies enhanced saving as a result of an increase in risk aversion, dominates…
Stochastic domains often involve risk-averse decision makers. While recent work has focused on how to model risk in Markov decision processes using risk measures, it has not addressed the problem of solving large risk-averse formulations. In this paper, we propose and analyze a new method for solving large risk-averse …
Is the elasticity of intertemporal substitution (EIS) more or less than one? This question can be answered by confronting theoretical results of asset pricing models with investor behaviour during episodes of stock market panic. If we consider these episodes as periods of high risk aversion, then lower asset prices are…
Spectral risk measures are attractive risk measures as they allow the user to obtain risk measures that reflect their risk-aversion functions. To date there has been very little guidance on the choice of risk-aversion functions underlying spectral risk measures. This paper addresses this issue by examining two popular …
The geometric Lévy model (GLM) is a natural generalisation of the geometric Brownian motion model (GBM) used in the derivation of the Black-Scholes formula. The theory of such models simplifies considerably if one takes a pricing kernel approach. In one dimension, once the underlying Lévy process has been specified, th…
In this paper the fractional trading ansatz of money management is reconsidered with special attention to chance and risk parts in the goal function of the related optimization problem. By changing the goal function with due regards to other risk measures like current drawdowns, the optimal fraction solutions reflect t…
The paper characterizes equilibrium strategies under random risk aversion, showing unique solutions based on risk aversion distribution.
problem Characterizing equilibrium strategies in a continuous-time portfolio selection problem under random risk aversion.
method Provided a complete characterization of all deterministic equilibrium strategies in closed form, analyzing the structure of the solution based on the distribution of random risk aversion.
result The equilibrium is unique (if exists) when the expectation of random risk aversion is finite, but infinite expectation leads to either infinitely many equilibria or a unique trivial one.