Convex Risk Measures based on Divergence

Abstract: Risk measures connect probability theory or statistics to optimization, particularly to convex optimization. They are nowadays standard in applications of finance and in insurance involving risk aversion. This paper investigates a wide class of risk measures on Orlicz spaces. The characterizing function describes the decision maker's risk assessment towards increasing losses. We link the risk measures to a crucial formula developed by Rockafellar for the Average Value-at-Risk based on convex duality, which is fundamental in corresponding optimization problems. We characterize the dual and provide complementary representations.