Numerical method for optimal stopping of piecewise deterministic Markov processes

TitleNumerical method for optimal stopping of piecewise deterministic Markov processes
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2010
AuthorsBenoîte de Saporta, François Dufour, and Karen Gonzalez
Keywordsdynamic programming, numerical method, Optimal Stopping, piecewise deterministic Markov processes, quantization
Abstract

We propose a numerical method to approximate the value function for the optimal stopping problem of a piecewise deterministic Markov process (PDMP). Our approach is based on quantization of the post jump location - inter-arrival time Markov chain naturally embedded in the PDMP, and path-adapted time discretization grids. It allows us to derive bounds for the convergence rate of the algorithm and to provide a computable $ \epsilon $-optimal stopping time. The paper is illustrated by a numerical example.