An Extended McKean — Vlasov Dynamic Programming Approach to Robust Equilibrium Controls under Ambiguous Covariance Matrix

This paper studies a general class of time-inconsistent stochastic control problems under ambiguous covariance matrix. The time-inconsistency is caused in various ways by a general objective functional and thus the associated control problem does not admit Bellman's principle of optimality. Moreover, we model the state by a McKean — Vlasov dynamics under a set of non-dominated probability measures induced by the ambiguous covariance matrix of the noises. We apply a game-theoretic concept of subgame perfect Nash equilibrium to develop a robust equilibrium control approach, which can yield robust time-consistent decisions. We characterize the robust equilibrium control and equilibrium value function by an extended optimality principle and then we further deduce a system of Bellman — Isaacs equations to determine the equilibrium solution on the Wasserstein space of probability measures. The proposed analytical framework is illustrated with its applications to robust continuous-time mean-variance portfolio selection problems with risk aversion coefficient being constant or state-dependent, under the ambiguity stemming from ambiguous volatilities of multiple assets or ambiguous correlation between two risky assets. The explicit equilibrium portfolio solutions are represented in terms of the probability law.