Choosing the drift that makes an exponential walk fair
Question
Let be independent, each equal to or with probability , and let be a constant. Start from and for put . Exactly one value of makes a martingale for the filtration generated by the . Writing that value as (natural log), compute .
Short answer
. We need , i.e. , so . Thus , , , and the sum is .
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Open the worked solutionLessons behind this question
- Markov Chains — Transition Matrices and the Markov Property
- Exit Distributions and Exit Times
- The Optional Stopping Theorem
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