Dividend ratcheting and capital injection under the Cram\'er-Lundberg model: Strong solution and optimal strategy

Chonghu Guan and Zuo Quan Xu

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Abstract: We consider an optimal dividend payout problem for an insurance company whose surplus follows the classical Cram\'er-Lundberg model. The dividend rate is subject to a ratcheting constraint (i.e., it must be nondecreasing over time), and the company may inject capital at a proportional cost to avoid ruin. This problem gives rise to a stochastic control problem with a self-path-dependent control constraint, costly capital injections, and jump-diffusion dynamics. The associated Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation is a partial integro-differential variational inequality featuring both a nonlocal integral term and a gradient constraint. We develop a systematic probabilistic and PDE-based approach to solve this HJB equation. By discretizing the space of admissible dividend rates, we construct a sequence of approximating regime-switching systems of ordinary integro-differential equations. Through careful a priori estimates and a limiting argument, we prove the existence and uniqueness of a \emph{strong solution} in a suitable space. This regularity result is fundamental: it allows us to characterize the optimal dividend policy via a switching free boundary and to construct an explicit optimal feedback control strategy. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first complete solution -- comprising both the value function and an implementable optimal strategy -- for a dividend ratcheting problem with capital injection under the Cram\'er-Lundberg model. Our work advances the mathematical theory of optimal stochastic control beyond the standard viscosity solution framework, providing a rigorous foundation for dividend policy design in economics.

Date: 2026-04
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