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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 ϕ\phi. Unlike the Wasserstein distance (i.e., when ϕ(x)=x2\phi(x)=x^2) 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 ϕ\phi allow to better align the payoff choice with the objectives of investors.

Keywords

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}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T20:14:40.119Z