Optimal Dividend Strategy in a Jump-Diffusion Model with a Linear Barrier Constraint

For a financial or insurance entity, the problem of finding the optimal dividend distribution strategy and optimal firm value function is a widely discussed topic. In the present paper, it is assumed that the firm faces two types of liquidity risks: a Brownian risk and a Poisson risk. The firm can control the time and amount of dividends paid out to shareholders. By sufficiently taking into account the safety of the company, bankruptcy is said to take place at time t if the cash reserve of the firm runs below the linear barrier b+kt (not zero), see 1. We deal with the problem of maximizing the expected total discounted dividends paid out until bankruptcy. The optimal dividend return (or, firm value) function is identified as the classical solution of the associated Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation where a second-order differential-integro equation is involved. By solving the corresponding HJB equation, the analytical solution of the optimal firm value function is obtained, the optimal dividend strategy is also characterized, which is of linear barrier type: at time t the firm keeps cash inside when the cash reserves level is less than a critical linear barrier and pays cash in excess of this linear barrier as dividends.