English

Variational formulation of American option prices in the Heston Model

Probability 2018-12-12 v2

Abstract

We give an analytical characterization of the price function of an American option in Heston-type models. Our approach is based on variational inequalities and extends recent results of Daskalopoulos and Feehan (2011). We study the existence and uniqueness of a weak solution of the associated degenerate parabolic obstacle problem. Then, we use suitable estimates on the joint distribution of the log-price process and the volatility process in order to characterize the analytical weak solution as the solution to the optimal stopping problem. We also rely on semi-group techniques and on the affine property of the model.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1711.11311,
  title  = {Variational formulation of American option prices in the Heston Model},
  author = {Damien Lamberton and Giulia Terenzi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1711.11311},
  year   = {2018}
}