Stochastic Calculus and Financial Applications
By: by J. Michael Steele
Series: Applications of Mathematics, Stochastic Modelling and Applied Probability -- 45; Applications of Mathematics, Stochastic Modelling and Applied Probability -- 45
Publisher: Springer New York
Published: 2001
Place of publication: New York, NY
Language: eng
Format: [electronic resource] /
Number of pages: 300
ISBN-13: 9781441928627; 9781468493054
Subjects: Mathematics; Mathematical statistics; Distribution (Probability theory); Finance
Description: This book is designed for students who want to develop professional skills in stochastic calculus and its application to problems in finance. The Wharton School course on which the book is based is designed for energetic students who have had some experience with probability and statistics, but who have not had advanced courses in stochastic processes. Even though the course assumes only a modest background, it moves quickly and - in the end - students can expect to have the tools that are deep enough and rich enough to be relied upon throughout their professional careers. The course begins with simple random walk and the analysis of gambling games. This material is used to motivate the theory of martingales, and, after reaching a decent level of confidence with discrete processes, the course takes up the more demanding development of continuous time stochastic process, especially Brownian motion. The construction of Brownian motion is given in detail, and enough material on the subtle properties of Brownian paths is developed so that the student should sense of when intuition can be trusted and when it cannot. The course then takes up the Itô integral and aims to provide a development that is honest and complete without being pedantic. With the Itô integral in hand, the course focuses more on models. Stochastic processes of importance in Finance and Economics are developed in concert with the tools of stochastic calculus that are needed in order to solve problems of practical importance. The financial notion of replication is developed, and the Black-Scholes PDE is derived by three different methods. The course then introduces enough of the theory of the diffusion equation to be able to solve the Black-Scholes PDE and prove the uniqueness of the solution.
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Table of contents: title: Random Walk and First Step Analysis; title: First Martingale Steps; title: Brownian Motion; title: Martingale: The Next Steps; title: Richness of Paths; title: Itô Integration; title: Localization and Itô's Integral; title: Itô's Formula; title: Stochastic Differential Equations; title: Arbitrage and SDEs; title: The Diffusion Equation; title: Representation Theorem; title: Girsanov Theory; title: Arbitrage and Martingales; title: The Feynman-Kac Connection; title: Appendix I. Mathematical Tools; title: Appendix II. Comments and Credits; title: Bibliography; title: Index.