Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2012 / iii / Paper 44 / 4

The marked-to-market value of the current holdings is $X_t=H_t\cdot P_t$. In a self-financing portfolio, purchases are paid for by sales within the portfolio, so rebalancing itself changes no net wealth. Asset price changes contribute $H_t\cdot d{P}_t$, and nonnegative consumption removes $c_{t}dt$ from wealth. HenceThe holdings must be predictable and stochastically integrable. The second identity is the self-financing definition with withdrawals; it is not obtained by incorrectly setting the changes in the holdings themselves to zero.

Apply the Itô product rule and the quadratic covariation rule for a stochastic integral. The finite variation consumption term has zero quadratic covariation with $Z$, soUsing $X=H\cdot P$ and the wealth equation,Thus the deflated wealth equation with consumption isNo finite variation assumption on $H$ is needed: the self-financing equation and the stochastic-integral quadratic covariation rule already incorporate the portfolio's financing constraint.

Use the usual normalization $Z_0=1$, finite deterministic initial wealth $x=X_0\ge 0$, positive state-price density, and nonnegative consumption. The deflated asset prices $ZP$ are local martingales, so predictable stochastic integrability makes $M=\int H\cdot d(ZP)$ a zero-starting local martingale. Integrating part (b) givesA nonnegative local martingale is a supermartingale: localize to martingales, apply Conditional Fatou lemma, and obtain the conditional expectation inequality and integrability. Therefore $N$, and hence $M=N-x$, are supermartingales. In particular,This is supermartingale control of deflated consumption gains. Nonnegative consumption is essential to the lower bound; it is the ordinary meaning of a consumption rate here. Wealth nonnegativity alone would not supply that bound if arbitrary signed cash flows were allowed.

The supermartingale conclusion givesDiscard the nonnegative terminal-wealth term and let $t\to \infty$. The cumulative deflated consumption increases, so monotone convergence theorem yields the state-price budget constraintThe normalization is relevant: with $Z_0\ne 1$ the right side is $Z_0{X}_0$; with random integrable initial deflated wealth its expectation is the unconditional budget bound.

Write $D=\mathbb{E}{\int }_0^{\infty }{e}^{-bt/R}{Z}_t^{1-1/R}dt$ and use the product measure $d\mathbb{P}dt$. For $0<R<1$, the conjugate exponents are $p=1/(1-R)$ and $q=1/R$. Factor the utility integrand asThe Holder inequality on this product measure givesDivide by $1-R$ to obtain the Hölder bound for discounted CRRA consumption:For a finite right side this is ordinary Hölder; on the infinite measure space one can first truncate time and then pass by monotone convergence theorem. If $D=\infty$ and $X_0>0$, the bound is valid but uninformative. If $X_0=0$, the budget forces $c=0$ almost everywhere, so the utility integral is zero; handle this separately instead of writing an undefined $0\cdot \infty$.

When $D$ is finite and the bound is attained, equality requires full budget use and $c_t=(X_0/D)e^{-bt/R}{Z}_t^{-1/R}$. This is the equality pattern of Hölder, not an assertion that every market can finance that process.