Jump-Process Itô Formula for a Poisson-Driven Exponential
Summary
The document derives the differential of an exponential process driven by a Poisson count. The process combines deterministic exponential growth with a multiplicative change at each jump, and the resulting differential has a continuous time component and a jump component. The jump term is the relative change in the process value multiplied by the Poisson increment.
Two derivations are presented: an expansion using jump-process Itô rules and a product-rule decomposition into continuous and jump factors. Both lead to the same expression. The product-rule explanation emphasizes that jumps must be evaluated using the value immediately before the jump, so the precise stochastic differential uses the left limit of the process in its integrands. This is a focused derivation rather than a broader treatment of jump calculus; it does not discuss applications, parameter estimation, or financial modeling beyond the stated process.
Key ideas
- A Poisson jump changes the process by a multiplicative factor determined by the jump size.
- The differential contains a deterministic drift term and a term proportional to the Poisson increment.
- The jump contribution can be found by subtracting the process value immediately before a jump from its value after the jump.
- In stochastic integral notation, the process in the integrands is evaluated at its pre-jump value.
Tags
Full text
# Ito's formula for Jump process
# Ito's formula for Jump process
Let $\{N_t\,|\,0\leq t\leq T\}$ be a Poisson process with intensity $\lambda>0$ defined on the probability space $(\Omega,\mathcal{F}_t,P)$ with respect to the filtration $\mathcal{F}_t$ and \begin{align} X_t=e^{(\lambda-\eta)\,t}\,\left(\frac{\eta}{\lambda}\right)^{N_t}, \end{align} where $\eta>0$.How can I obtain $dX_t$?
## Answer by user16651 (score 7, accepted)
https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/18592
By Ito's lemma,
\begin{align} dX_t=\frac{\partial X_t}{\partial t}dt+\frac{\partial X_t}{\partial N(t)}dN_t+\frac{1}{2!}\frac{\partial^2 X_t}{\partial N^2_t}(dN_t)^2+\frac{\partial^2 X_t}{\partial N_t\partial t}{}dN_tdt+\frac{1}{3!}\frac{\partial^3 X_t}{\partial N^3_t}(dN_t)^3+... \end{align} Since $dN_t\,dt = 0, (dN_t)^2 = (dN_t)^3 = . . . = dN_t$, we have \begin{align} dX_t=\frac{\partial X_t}{\partial t}dt+\left(\frac{\partial X_t}{\partial N_t}+\frac{1}{2!}\frac{\partial^2 X_t}{\partial N^2_t}+\frac{1}{3!}\frac{\partial^3 X_t}{\partial N^3_t}+...\right)dN_t. \end{align} On the other hand \begin{align} &\frac{\partial X_t}{\partial t}=(\lambda-\eta)\,X_t\\ &\frac{\partial^n X_t}{\partial N_t^n}=\left[\ln \left(\frac{\eta}{\lambda}\right)\right]^nX_t,\\ \end{align} therefore
\begin{align} dX_t=(\lambda-\eta)\,X_tdt+\sum_{n=1}^{\infty}\frac{1}{n!}\left[\ln \left(\frac{\eta}{\lambda}\right)\right]^nX_t\,dN_t \end{align} We know $\sum_{n=1}^{\infty}\frac{1}{n!}\left[\ln \left(\frac{\eta}{\lambda}\right)\right]^n=exp\left(\ln \left(\frac{\eta}{\lambda}\right)\right)-1=\frac{\eta}{\lambda}-1=\frac{\eta-\lambda}{\lambda}$ thus we have \begin{align} dX_t=(\lambda-\eta)\,X_tdt+\frac{\eta-\lambda}{\lambda}X_t\,dN_t \end{align}
## Answer by quasi (score 7)
https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/18599
Write $X_t = A_t B_t$ with $A_t = e^{(\lambda - \eta)t}$ and $B_t = \left(\frac{\eta}{\lambda} \right)^{N_t}$.
Then $dX_t = A_t dB_t + B_t dA_t$ by the product rule of calculus. There are no second order terms since both $A_t$ and $B_t$ are finite variation (i.e. $\langle A_t, B_t\rangle$= 0).
Next, $dA_t = (\lambda - \eta)A_t dt$, and $dB_t = B_t \cdot \left(\frac{\eta}{\lambda} - 1\right)dN_t$. The form of $dA_t$ follows from normal calculus, and the form of $dB_t$ follows from subtracting before and after values of the jump process.
Using the two paragraphs above, we get $$dX_t = A_tB_t \left( \left(\frac{\eta}{\lambda} - 1 \right)dN_t + (\lambda - \eta)dt\right) = X_t\left( \left(\frac{\eta}{\lambda} - 1 \right)dN_t + (\lambda - \eta)dt\right).$$
Edit for @Behrouz:
$dB_t = \left(\frac{\eta}{\lambda}\right)^{N_t} - \left(\frac{\eta}{\lambda}\right)^{N_{t-}}$.
When $N_t$ does not jump, this value is zero. When $N_t$ does jump, it is equal to
$\left(\frac{\eta}{\lambda}\right)^{N_t} - \left(\frac{\eta}{\lambda}\right)^{N_{t} - 1} = B_{t-}\left(\frac{\eta}{\lambda} - 1 \right)dN_t$
So actually in my original answer, I should have minuses for left hand limits to be technically correct.Shown in full with attribution under the source's licence. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 (Stack Exchange)
This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.