Pricing Under a Risk-Neutral Measure and a T-Forward Measure
Summary
The document reviews the risk-neutral valuation formula: an asset’s current value is the conditional expectation of its discounted maturity payoff under a pricing measure. It then introduces a change of numeraire, using a zero-coupon bond to define a T-forward measure. With a payoff at the bond’s maturity, the value is the bond price multiplied by the payoff’s conditional expectation under that measure. A Radon–Nikodym derivative is used to relate the two valuation expressions.
The main question asks whether the same expectation-based formula can be used under a proposed family of measures defined through a Poisson jump process, and how pricing differs between complete markets with traded payoffs and incomplete markets with non-traded insurance risks. The document supplies no answer to that question. In particular, it does not specify how to select an equivalent martingale measure for the proposed measure or how to determine prices for unhedgeable claims; those issues require additional market and valuation assumptions.
Key ideas
- Risk-neutral valuation expresses a claim’s price as the conditional expectation of its discounted payoff.
- Using a zero-coupon bond as numeraire leads to a T-forward measure and a bond-price-scaled expectation.
- A Radon–Nikodym derivative connects the risk-neutral and forward-measure valuations.
- The document asks how to price under a Poisson-jump-defined measure but does not resolve the question.
- In incomplete markets, a pricing measure alone does not specify a unique price for an untradeable claim.
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# Pricing formula under a new risk-neutral pricing measure:
# Pricing formula under a new risk-neutral pricing measure:
From the fundamental asset pricing theorem, we know that in the absence of arbitrage opportunities, the present value of an asset paying $\Psi(X)$ at maturity time $T$ is given by: \begin{equation} V_t = \beta(t)\mathbb{E}^{\mathbb{Q}}\Big[\frac{\Psi(X_T)}{\beta(T)}\Big |\mathcal{F}_t\Big] = \mathbb{E}^{\mathbb{Q}}\Big[D(t, T)\Psi(X_T) \Big| \mathcal{F}_t\Big] \end{equation} where the expectation is under the risk-neutral pricing measure $\mathbb{Q}$ that is equivalent to the "reference" measure $\mathbb{P}$, $\beta(.)$ stands for the saving account, $D(t, T)=\frac{\beta(t)}{\beta(T)}$ for the so-called discount factor, and $\mathcal{F}_t$ represents all infiomation available at time $t$ to an agent. According to this theory, the present price of a financial contact is the expectation of the future cash flow disocunted at risk-free rate $r(t)$. Here, $\mathbb{Q}$ is the risk-nuetral measure assocuited with the numerair process $\beta(t)$ under which any asset price disocunted by $\beta(t)$ is a Martinagle.The well-know Girsanove's Theorem tells us how the radon-Nikodym derivative process $\frac{d\mathbb{Q}}{d\mathbb{P}}$ looks like.
From the change of numeraire process technique, we learn how to change the measure. If we want to use another numeraire process such as a zero-coupon bond price, the price is computed under the T-forward measure $\mathbb{Q}^T$. Therefore, this measure is associated with the price of a zero-coupon bond with maturity time $T$. We have that \begin{equation} V_t = P(t, T)\mathbb{E}^{\mathbb{Q}^T}\Big[\frac{\Psi(X_T)}{P(T, T)}\Big |\mathcal{F}_t\Big] = P(t, T)\mathbb{E}^{\mathbb{Q}^T}\Big[ \Psi(X_T)\Big |\mathcal{F}_t\Big] \end{equation} where $P(t, T)$ is the zero-coupon bond price at time $t$ maturing at time $T$, for which $P(T, T)= 1$. We know that the Radon-Nikodym derivative $\frac{d\mathbb{Q}^T}{d\mathbb{Q}}|_{\mathcal{F}_T} = \frac{\beta(t)P(T, T)}{\beta(T)P(t, T)}$. In fact, this is how we get the above relation: \begin{equation} V_t = \mathbb{E}^{\mathbb{Q}}\Big[D(t, T)\Psi(X_T) \Big| \mathcal{F}_t\Big] = \mathbb{E}^{\mathbb{Q}^T}\Big[\Big(\frac{d\mathbb{Q}^T}{d\mathbb{Q}}|_{\mathcal{F}_T}\Big)^{-1}D(t, T)\Psi(X_T) \Big| \mathcal{F}_t\Big] \\ = \mathbb{E}^{\mathbb{Q}^T}\Bigg[ \Bigg(\frac{\beta(t)P(T, T)}{\beta(T)P(t, T)}\Bigg)^{-1}D(t, T)\Psi(X_T) \Big| \mathcal{F}_t\Bigg] \\ =P(t, T)\mathbb{E}^{\mathbb{Q}^T}\Big[ \Psi(X_T)\Big |\mathcal{F}_t\Big] \end{equation} Now, I amount to my main problem. Suppose that we can find a class of risk-neutral measure $\mathbb{Q}^{(B)}$ whose Radon-Nikodym derivative with respect to physical measure $\mathbb{P}$ is characterized as follows \begin{equation} \frac{d\mathbb{Q}^{(B)}}{d\mathbb{P}} = exp\Big\{ \sum_{k=1}^{N(t)}B(Y_k) - \lambda t\Big(\mathbb{E}^{\mathbb{P}}[e^{B(Y_1)}-1]\Big) \Big\} \end{equation} where $B(.)$ is a Borel measurable function, $N(t)$ is a Poisson process with intensity $\lambda$, and $Y_k$ are positive random variables. In such a case, how can I define the price under measure $\mathbb{Q}^{(B)}$? Please consider two situations: a complete market and an incomplete market. For example, assume that the former refers to the situation where the payment is linked to a tradeable asset in the market while the latter refers to the situation where the cash flow payment is linked to an insurance risk, which is not tradeable. Please do not consider the form of Radon-Nikodym derivative $\frac{d\mathbb{Q}^{(B)}}{d\mathbb{P}}$. I aim to know if the pricing formula should look like the first relation but under measure $\mathbb{Q}^{(B)}$.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.