Financial engineering has been proven to be a useful tool for risk management, but using the theory in practice requires a thorough understanding of the risks and ethical standards involved. Stochastic Processes with Applications to Finance, Second Edition presents the mathematical theory of financial engineering using only basic mathematical tools

This book introduces the theory of stochastic processes with applications taken from physics and finance. Fundamental concepts like the random walk or Brownian motion but also Levy-stable distributions are discussed. Applications are selected to show the interdisciplinary character of the concepts and methods. In the second edition of the book a discussion of extreme events ranging from their mathematical definition to their importance for financial crashes was included. The exposition of basic notions of probability theory and the Brownian motion problem as well as the relation between conservative diffusion processes and quantum mechanics is expanded. The second edition also enlarges the treatment of financial markets. Beyond a presentation of geometric Brownian motion and the Black-Scholes approach to option pricing as well as the econophysics analysis of the stylized facts of financial markets, an introduction to agent based modeling approaches is given.

Stochastic calculus has important applications to mathematical finance. This book will appeal to practitioners and students who want an elementary introduction to these areas. From the reviews: "As the preface says, ‘This is a text with an attitude, and it is designed to reflect, wherever possible and appropriate, a prejudice for the concrete over the abstract’. This is also reflected in the style of writing which is unusually lively for a mathematics book." --ZENTRALBLATT MATH

Financial engineering has been proven to be a useful tool for risk management, but using the theory in practice requires a thorough understanding of the risks and ethical standards involved. Stochastic Processes with Applications to Finance, Second Edition presents the mathematical theory of financial engineering using only basic mathematical tools that are easy to understand even for those with little mathematical expertise. This second edition covers several important developments in the financial industry. New to the Second Edition A chapter on the change of measures and pricing of insurance products Many examples of the change of measure technique, including its use in asset pricing theory A section on the use of copulas, especially in the pricing of CDOs Two chapters that offer more coverage of interest rate derivatives and credit derivatives Exploring the merge of actuarial science and financial engineering, this edition examines how the pricing of insurance products, such as equity-linked annuities, requires knowledge of asset pricing theory since the equity index can be traded in the market. The book looks at the development of many probability transforms for pricing insurance risks, including the Esscher transform. It also describes how the copula model is used to model the joint distribution of underlying assets. By presenting significant results in discrete processes and showing how to transfer the results to their continuous counterparts, this text imparts an accessible, practical understanding of the subject. It helps readers not only grasp the theory of financial engineering, but also implement the theory in business.

This book introduces stochastic processes and their applications for students in engineering, industrial statistics, science, operations research, business, and finance. It provides the theoretical foundations for modeling time-dependent random phenomena encountered in these disciplines. Through numerous science and engineering-based examples and exercises, the author presents the subject in a comprehensible, practically oriented way, but he also includes some important proofs and theoretically challenging examples and exercises that will appeal to more mathematically minded readers. Solutions to most of the exercises are included either in an appendix or within the text.

Completely revised and greatly expanded, the new edition of this text takes readers who have been exposed to only basic courses in analysis through the modern general theory of random processes and stochastic integrals as used by systems theorists, electronic engineers and, more recently, those working in quantitative and mathematical finance. Building upon the original release of this title, this text will be of great interest to research mathematicians and graduate students working in those fields, as well as quants in the finance industry. New features of this edition include: End of chapter exercises; New chapters on basic measure theory and Backward SDEs; Reworked proofs, examples and explanatory material; Increased focus on motivating the mathematics; Extensive topical index. "Such a self-contained and complete exposition of stochastic calculus and applications fills an existing gap in the literature. The book can be recommended for first-year graduate studies. It will be useful for all who intend to work with stochastic calculus as well as with its applications."–Zentralblatt (from review of the First Edition)

This book consists of a series of new, peer-reviewed papers in stochastic processes, analysis, filtering and control, with particular emphasis on mathematical finance, actuarial science and engineering. Paper contributors include colleagues, collaborators and former students of Robert Elliott, many of whom are world-leading experts and have made fundamental and significant contributions to these areas.This book provides new important insights and results by eminent researchers in the considered areas, which will be of interest to researchers and practitioners. The topics considered will be diverse in applications, and will provide contemporary approaches to the problems considered. The areas considered are rapidly evolving. This volume will contribute to their development, and present the current state-of-the-art stochastic processes, analysis, filtering and control.Contributing authors include: H Albrecher, T Bielecki, F Dufour, M Jeanblanc, I Karatzas, H-H Kuo, A Melnikov, E Platen, G Yin, Q Zhang, C Chiarella, W Fleming, D Madan, R Mamon, J Yan, V Krishnamurthy.