Hedging is widely used to mitigate severe water shortages in the operation of reservoirs during droughts. Rationing is usually instituted with one hedging policy, which is based only on one trigger, i.e., initial storage level or current water availability. It may perform poorly in balancing the benefits of a release during the current period versus those of carryover storage during future drou...

Abstract We analyze the errors arising from discrete rebalancing of the hedging portfolio in exponential Lévy models, and establish the rates at which the expected squared discretization error goes to zero when the length of the rebalancing step decreases. Different hedging strategies and option pay-offs are considered. The case of digital options is studied in detail, and it turns out that in ...

A super-replication problem with a gamma constraint, introduced in [12], is studied in the context of the one-dimensional Black and Scholes model. Several representations of the minimal super-hedging cost are obtained using the characterization derived in [3]. It is shown that the upper bound constraint on the gamma implies that the optimal strategy consists in hedging a conveniently face-lifte...

We consider the mean-variance hedging problem under partial Information. The underlying asset price process follows a continuous semimartingale and strategies have to be constructed when only part of the information in the market is available. We show that the initial mean variance hedging problem is equivalent to a new mean variance hedging problem with an additional correction term, which is ...

This paper analyzes the application of quantile hedging on equity-linked life insurance contracts in the presence of transaction costs. Following the time-based replication strategy, we present the explicit expressions for the present values of expected hedging errors and transaction costs. The results are derived by using the adjusted hedging volatility σ̄ proposed by Leland. Furthermore, the e...

Uncertainty is a problem not only in human decision-making, but is a prevalent quality of natural environments and thus requires evolutionary response. Unpredictable natural selection is expected to result in the evolution of bet-hedging strategies, which are adaptations to long-term fluctuating selection. Despite a recent surge of interest in bet hedging, its study remains mired in conceptual ...

We analyze optimal risk management strategies of a bank financed with deposits and equity in a one period model. The bank’s motivation for risk management comes from deposits which can lead to bank runs. In the event of such a run, liquidation costs arise. The hedging strategy that maximizes the value of equity is derived. We identify conditions under which well known results such as complete h...

Theoretical research predicted that firms with convex tax schedules would hedge to minimize expected taxes. However, previous empirical research did not detect a relationship between derivative use and tax losses carry forward, which contribute to tax schedule convexity. This study aims to show that the tax incentive to hedge depends on tax losses carry forward and the ability of the firm to ca...

We compare the performance of various hedging strategies for index collateralized debt obligation (CDO) tranches across a variety of models and hedging methods during the recent credit crisis. Our empirical analysis shows evidence for market incompleteness: a large proportion of risk in the CDO tranches appears to be unhedgeable. We also show that, unlike what is commonly assumed, dynamic model...

This paper empirically tests the determinants of foreign currency hedging using a large sample of UK non-financial firms. I find, unlike similar studies using US data, strong evidence of a relationship between expected financial distress costs and the foreign currency hedging decision and more significantly the foreign currency only hedging decision. This contrast in the findings between this s...