Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2006 / ii / Paper 2 / 28I / a / Solution

An arbitrage is a portfolio with nonpositive initial cost, nonnegative terminal payoff almost surely and a positive payoff with positive probability, allowing unused initial cash to be invested in the riskless asset. Equivalently it is a zero-cost portfolio with those terminal properties. An equivalent martingale measure $Q$ has the same null sets as the physical measure and satisfies $E_Q[S_1^i]=(1+r)S_0^i$ for every traded asset, with appropriate integrability.

For an agent with differentiable increasing concave utility and an optimal portfolio, let $W^{\ast }$ be its terminal wealth. The first-order conditions for variations in risky holdings are $E[U^{\prime }(W^{\ast })(S_1^i-(1+r)S_0^i)]=0$. If $U^{\prime }(W^{\ast })>0$ and integrable, normalize it to the probability density $Z=U^{\prime }(W^{\ast })/E[U^{\prime }(W^{\ast })]$. The first-order conditions make $Q$ with $dQ=ZdP$ an equivalent martingale measure. A small additional payoff $H$ then has marginal priceThis follows by setting the first variation of expected utility for buying a small claim at price $p$ equal to zero.