Heckman introduced N operators on the space of polynomials in N variables, such that these operators form a covariant set relative to permutations of the operators and variables, and such that Jack symmetric polynomials are eigenfunctions of the power sums of these operators. We introduce the analogues of these N operators for Macdonald symmetric polynomials, by using Cherednik operators. The latter operators pairwise commute, and Macdonald polynomials are eigenfunctions of their power sums. We compute the limits of our operators at N → ∞ . These limits yield a Lax operator for Macdonald symmetric functions. This is a joint work with Evgeny Sklyanin.

Martingale optimal transport is a variant of the classical optimal transport problem where a martingale constraint is imposed on the coupling. In a recent paper, Beiglböck, Nutz and Touzi show that in dimension one there is no duality gap and that the dual problem admits an optimizer. A key step towards this achievement is the characterization of the polar sets of the family of all martingale couplings. Here we aim to extend this characterization to arbitrary finite dimension through a deeper study of the convex order

 

I spent a number of years trading government bonds and interest-rate derivatives for Barclays Capital. This included the period of the financial crisis, and I was a colleague of some of the Barclays traders charged with fraud related to LIBOR rate manipulation. I will present a some examples of common trading scenarios, and some of the ethical issues these might raise for quants.
 

We consider the problem of modelling the term structure of defaultable bonds, under minimal assumptions on the default time. In particular, we do not assume the existence of a default intensity and we therefore allow for the possibility of default at predictable times. It turns out that this requires the introduction of an additional term in the forward rate approach by Heath, Jarrow and Morton (1992). This term is driven by a random measure encoding information about those times where default can happen with positive probability.  In this framework, we  derive necessary and sufficient conditions for a reference probability measure to be a local martingale measure for the large financial market of credit risky bonds, also considering general recovery schemes. This is based on joint work with Thorsten Schmidt.