Optimal dividends under a drawdown constraint and a curious square-root rule

Hansjörg Albrecher (), Pablo Azcue () and Nora Muler ()
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Hansjörg Albrecher: University of Lausanne
Pablo Azcue: Universidad Torcuato Di Tella
Nora Muler: Universidad Torcuato Di Tella

Finance and Stochastics, 2023, vol. 27, issue 2, No 3, 400 pages

Abstract: Abstract In this paper, we address the problem of optimal dividend payout strategies from a surplus process governed by Brownian motion with drift under a drawdown constraint, i.e., the dividend rate can never decrease below a given fraction a $a$ of its historical maximum. We solve the resulting two-dimensional optimal control problem and identify the value function as the unique viscosity solution of the corresponding Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equation. We then derive sufficient conditions under which a two-curve strategy is optimal, and we show how to determine its concrete form using calculus of variations. We establish a smooth-pasting principle and show how it can be used to prove the optimality of two-curve strategies for sufficiently large initial and maximum dividend rates. We also give a number of numerical illustrations in which the optimality of the two-curve strategy can be established for instances with smaller values of the maximum dividend rate and the concrete form of the curves can be determined. One observes that the resulting drawdown strategies nicely interpolate between the solution for the classical unconstrained dividend problem and that for a ratcheting constraint as recently studied in Albrecher et al. (SIAM J. Financial Math. 13:657–701, 2022). When the maximum allowed dividend rate tends to infinity, we show a surprisingly simple and somewhat intriguing limit result in terms of the parameter a $a$ for the surplus level above which, for a sufficiently large current dividend rate, a take-the-money-and-run strategy is optimal in the presence of the drawdown constraint.

Keywords: Optimal dividends; Viscosity solution; HJB equation; Optimal control; 91G50; 49L25; 93E20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G32 G33 G35 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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DOI: 10.1007/s00780-023-00500-6

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