Simulation and approximation of Levy-driven stochastic differential equations

Nicolas Fournier

Published 2009-01-20Version 1

We consider the problem of the simulation of Levy-driven stochastic differential equations. It is generally impossible to simulate the increments of a Levy-process. Thus in addition to an Euler scheme, we have to simulate approximately these increments. We use a method in which the large jumps are simulated exactly, while the small jumps are approximated by Gaussian variables. Using some recent results of Rio about the central limit theorem, in the spirit of the famous paper by Komlos-Major-Tsunady, we derive an estimate for the strong error of this numerical scheme. This error remains reasonnable when the Levy measure is very singular near 0, which is not the case when neglecting the small jumps. In the same spirit, we study the problem of the approximation of a Levy-driven S.D.E. by a Brownian S.D.E. when the Levy process has no large jumps.