On the monotonicity of the stopping boundary for time-inhomogeneous optimal stopping problems

Abstract

We consider a class of time-inhomogeneous optimal stopping problems and we provide sufficient conditions on the data of the problem that guarantee monotonicity of the optimal stopping boundary. In our setting, time-inhomogeneity stems not only from the reward function but, in particular, from the time dependence of the drift coefficient of the one-dimensional stochastic differential equation (SDE) which drives the stopping problem. In order to obtain our results, we mostly employ probabilistic arguments: we use a comparison principle between solutions of the SDE computed at different starting times, and martingale methods of optimal stopping theory. We also show a variant of the main theorem, which weakens one of the assumptions and additionally relies on the renowned connection between optimal stopping and free-boundary problems.