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Dividends: From refracting to ratcheting

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  • Albrecher, Hansjörg
  • Bäuerle, Nicole
  • Bladt, Martin

Abstract

In this paper we consider an alternative dividend payment strategy in risk theory, where the dividend rate can never decrease. This addresses a concern that has often been raised in connection with the practical relevance of optimal classical dividend payment strategies of barrier and threshold type. We study the case where once during the lifetime of the risk process the dividend rate can be increased and derive corresponding formulas for the resulting expected discounted dividend payments until ruin. We first consider a general spectrally-negative Lévy risk model, and then refine the analysis for a diffusion approximation and a compound Poisson risk model. It is shown that for the diffusion approximation the optimal barrier for the ratcheting strategy is characterized by an unexpected relation to the case of refracted dividend payments. Finally, numerical illustrations for the diffusion case indicate that with such a simple ratcheting dividend strategy the expected value of discounted dividends can already get quite close to the respective value of the refracted dividend strategy, the latter being known to be optimal among all admissible dividend strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Albrecher, Hansjörg & Bäuerle, Nicole & Bladt, Martin, 2018. "Dividends: From refracting to ratcheting," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 47-58.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:insuma:v:83:y:2018:i:c:p:47-58
    DOI: 10.1016/j.insmatheco.2018.09.003
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    10. Bäuerle, Nicole & Jaśkiewicz, Anna, 2017. "Optimal dividend payout model with risk sensitive preferences," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 82-93.
    11. Avanzi, Benjamin & Pérez, José-Luis & Wong, Bernard & Yamazaki, Kazutoshi, 2017. "On optimal joint reflective and refractive dividend strategies in spectrally positive Lévy models," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 148-162.
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    13. Albrecher, Hansjörg & Borst, Sem & Boxma, Onno & Resing, Jacques, 2009. "The tax identity in risk theory -- a simple proof and an extension," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 304-306, April.
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    Cited by:

    1. Hansjoerg Albrecher & Pablo Azcue & Nora Muler, 2022. "Optimal dividends under a drawdown constraint and a curious square-root rule," Papers 2206.12220, arXiv.org.
    2. Hansjoerg Albrecher & Pablo Azcue & Nora Muler, 2020. "Optimal ratcheting of dividends in a Brownian risk model," Papers 2012.10632, arXiv.org.
    3. Leonie Violetta Brinker, 2021. "Minimal Expected Time in Drawdown through Investment for an Insurance Diffusion Model," Risks, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-18, January.
    4. Bahman Angoshtari & Erhan Bayraktar & Virginia R. Young, 2018. "Optimal Dividend Distribution Under Drawdown and Ratcheting Constraints on Dividend Rates," Papers 1806.07499, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2019.
    5. Hansjoerg Albrecher & Pablo Azcue & Nora Muler, 2019. "Optimal ratcheting of dividends in insurance," Papers 1910.06910, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2021.
    6. Hansjörg Albrecher & Pablo Azcue & Nora Muler, 2023. "Optimal dividends under a drawdown constraint and a curious square-root rule," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 341-400, April.
    7. Chonghu Guan & Zuo Quan Xu, 2023. "Optimal ratcheting of dividend payout under Brownian motion surplus," Papers 2308.15048, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2024.
    8. Piotr Jaworski & Kamil Liberadzki & Marcin Liberadzki, 2021. "On Write-Down/ Write-Up Loss Absorbing Instruments," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(1), pages 1204-1219.

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