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Partial regularity of semiconvex viscosity supersolutions to fully nonlinear elliptic HJB equations and applications to stochastic control

2025/01/25 by Salvatore Federico, Giorgio Ferrari, Federico, Salvatore +3
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Stochastic processes and financial applications

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2501.15285

Abstract

In this note, we demonstrate that a locally semiconvex viscosity supersolution to a possibly degenerate fully nonlinear elliptic Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation is differentiable along the directions spanned by the range of the coefficient associated with the second-order term. The proof leverages techniques from convex analysis combined with a contradiction argument. This result has significant implications for various stationary stochastic control problems. In the context of drift-control problems, it provides a pathway to construct a candidate optimal feedback control in the classical sense and establish a verification theorem. Furthermore, in optimal stopping and impulse control problems, when the second-order term is nondegenerate, the value function of the problem is shown to be differentiable.

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