Optimal payoff under Bregman-Wasserstein divergence constraints
Portfolio Management
2026-05-19 v3 Mathematical Finance
Risk Management
Abstract
We study optimal payoff choice for an expected utility maximizer under the constraint that their payoff is not allowed to deviate ``too much'' from a given benchmark. We solve this problem when the deviation is assessed via a Bregman-Wasserstein (BW) divergence, generated by a convex function . Unlike the Wasserstein distance (i.e., when ) the inherent asymmetry of the BW divergence makes it possible to penalize positive deviations different than negative ones. As a main contribution, we provide the optimal payoff in this setting. Numerical examples illustrate that the choice of allow to better align the payoff choice with the objectives of investors.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2411.18397,
title = {Optimal payoff under Bregman-Wasserstein divergence constraints},
author = {Silvana M. Pesenti and Steven Vanduffel and Yang Yang and Jing Yao},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.18397},
year = {2026}
}