Adaptive Multilevel Monte Carlo Approximation of Distribution Functions

Abstract: We analyse a multilevel Monte Carlo method for the approximation of distribution functions of univariate random variables. Since, by assumption, the target distribution is not known explicitly, approximations have to be used. We provide an asymptotic analysis of the error and the cost of the algorithm. Furthermore we construct an adaptive version of the algorithm that does not require any a priori knowledge on weak or strong convergence rates. We apply the adaptive algorithm to smooth path-independent and path-dependent functionals and to stopped exit times of SDEs.