A data-driven neural network approach to optimal asset allocation for target based defined contribution pension plans

A data-driven Neural Network (NN) optimization framework is proposed to determine optimal asset allocation during the accumulation phase of a defined contribution pension scheme. In contrast to parametric model based solutions computed by a partial differential equation approach, the proposed computational framework can scale to high dimensional multi-asset problems. More importantly, the proposed approach can determine the optimal NN control directly from market returns, without assuming a particular parametric model for the return process. We validate the proposed NN learning solution by comparing the NN control to the optimal control determined by solution of the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation. The HJB equation solution is based on a double exponential jump model calibrated to the historical market data. The NN control achieves nearly optimal performance. An alternative data-driven approach (without the need of a parametric model) is based on using the historic bootstrap resampling data sets. Robustness is checked by training with a blocksize different from the test data. In both two and three asset cases, we compare performance of the NN controls directly learned from the market return sample paths and demonstrate that they always significantly outperform constant proportion strategies. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.