Monte Carlo methods via a dual approach for some discrete time stochastic control problems

Abstract

We consider a class of discrete time stochastic control problems motivated by some financial applications. We use a pathwise stochastic control approach to provide a dual formulation of the problem. This enables us to develop a numerical technique for obtaining an estimate of the value function which improves on purely regression based methods. We demonstrate the competitiveness of the method on the example of a gas storage valuation problem.