The Kolmogorov forward equation for a distributed model of regime-switching diffusions

Abstract

For the regime-switching diffusion process with and without advection term we propose an integro-differential equation describing the densities of states continuously distributed over a segment. We demonstrate that there exists a constructive algorithm for solving the Cauchy problem. We then show that for some initial distributions of states, the solution can be found explicitly. We also discuss how a model with a discrete number of hidden states can be approximated by a model with continuously distributed states.

16 pages, 8 figures