Arbitrage Theory without a Reference Probability: challenges of the model-free approach
In a model independent discrete time financial market, we discuss the richness of the family of martingale measures in relation to different notions of Arbitrage, generated by a class S of significant sets, The choice of S reflects into the intrinsic properties of the class of polar sets of martingale measures. In particular: is S reduces to a singleton, absence of Model Independent Arbitrage is equivalent to the existence of a martingale measure; for S being the open sets, absence of Open Arbitrage is equivalent to the existence of full support martingale measures. These results are obtained by adopting a technical filtration enlargement and by constructing a Universal Aggregator of all arbitrage opportunities.
Furthermore we prove the superhedging duality theorem, where trading is allowed with dynamic and semi-static strategies. We also show that the initial cost of the cheapest portfolio that dominates a contingent claim on every possible path might be strictly greater than the upper bound of the no-arbitrage prices. We therefore characterize the subset of trajectories on which this duality gap disappears and prove that it is an analytic set.