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Girsanov Change of Measure for an Additive Stock Price Model

Article Quant Q&A · Author: nonseqseq

Summary

The discussion derives discounted stock dynamics for a Bachelier model with constant drift and volatility, then explains how to choose a Girsanov kernel so the discounted price has zero drift under a new measure. The kernel depends on the current stock price, unlike the constant kernel in the standard geometric Brownian motion setting. It also gives the exponential likelihood process used as the Radon–Nikodym derivative and substitutes the original Brownian representation of the stock into that expression.

The answer is an informal derivation rather than a complete treatment. It contains a notation error when writing the diffusion term and assumes a zero initial stock price without support from the question. It does not check the conditions needed for the likelihood process to define a valid probability measure, so the proposed change of measure and the resulting option expectation require further analysis. The final expected-payoff question is not worked out.

Key ideas

  • Discounting an additive stock process introduces a time-varying diffusion coefficient as well as a drift adjustment.
  • The Girsanov kernel must offset the drift and therefore depends on the current stock price.
  • The likelihood process has an exponential form involving the kernel integrated against Brownian motion and its squared time integral.
  • A valid change of measure requires conditions that ensure the likelihood process is a true martingale.
  • The discussion leaves the option payoff expectation unresolved.

Tags

Full text
# Girsanov transform when drift coefficient is a function of the stock price


# Girsanov transform when drift coefficient is a function of the stock price












I'm working my way through an elementary stochastic calculus textbook. I'm having trouble with one of the questions:

> Bachelier type stock price dynamics. Let the SDE for stock price $S$ be given by $dS(t) = \mu dt + \sigma dB(t)$, where $\mu$ and $\sigma$ are constant. Derive the SDE for $S$ under the money market account as the numeraire.

I interpret as follows: they want $dS^*$, where $S^* = S e^{-rt} $, where $r$ is the market rate. Applying the usual rules for stochastic differentials I arrive at:

$dS^* = (\mu e^{-rt} - r S^*) \ dt + \sigma dB $

or

$dS^* = (\mu - r S) e^{-rt} dt + \sigma dB$

> Then turn this into a martingale by a suitable Girsanov transformation, and specify the expression for the Radon–Nikodym derivative.

Here I'm unsure how to proceed. Help much appreciated. What I've tried so far was defining a new Brownian that depended on the stock price but that was inconsistent / did not make sense in the end.

What I've worked with previously either had the stock price on every term (so that it could be taken out) or not at all. Rest of the question, if it helps below:

> Thereafter derive the SDE for the undiscounted stock price and solve that SDE. Finally, using this latest stock price, derive the expected value of max[S(T ) − K, 0] where K is a constant.

## Answer by mmencke (score 3, accepted)

https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/63642

You forget the $e^{-rt}$ term in the diffusion: $$dS^*=-rS^*dt+e^{-rt}dS=(\mu e^{-rt}-rS^*)dt+e^{-rt}\sigma B^\mathbb{P}(t)$$ Using Girsanov we can write $B^\mathbb{P}(t)=B^\mathbb{Q}(t)+\phi(t)dt$, where $\phi(t)$ is the Girsanov kernel and the superscript denotes the measure for the Brownian Motion. Under $\mathbb{Q}$ the dynamics are $$dS^*=(\mu e^{-rt}-rS^*)dt+e^{-rt}\sigma (B^\mathbb{Q}(t)+\phi(t)dt)=e^{-rt}(\mu-rS+\sigma\phi(t))dt+e^{-rt}\sigma B^\mathbb{Q}(t)$$ We know that the drift must be zero for the discounted price process to be a martingale under $\mathbb{Q}$, so as $e^{-rt}>0$ $$\mu-rS+\sigma\phi(t)=0\quad\iff\quad \phi(t)=\frac{rS-\mu}{\sigma}$$ This depends on the stock price itself, so it is not straight forward to find the Radon-Nikodym derivative (as in Black-Scholes where the Girsanov kernel is constant). $$S(t)=S(0)+\int_0^t dS(u)=S(0)+\mu t+\sigma W(t)$$ It seems like $S$ starts in 0 as this is not part of the original SDE, so $S(0)=0$. The Radon-Nikodym derivative is given by $$L(t)=\exp\left(\int_0^t \phi(u)dW(u)-\frac{1}{2}\int_0^t(\phi(u))^2du\right)$$ with $\phi(u)=\frac{r\mu u+r\sigma W(u)-\mu}{\sigma}$. It is definitely possible to calculate the above integrals, but it will be tedious. There might be an easy way to calculate the two integrals using some trick, but the complexity of the expression could also be due to an error on my side :)

The last question can be answered by using the distribution of $S$ under $\mathbb{Q}$ which depend on the Girsanov kernel.

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