This volume includes the five lecture courses given at the CIME-EMS
School on "Stochastic Methods in Finance" held in Bressanone/Brixen,
Italy 2003. It deals with innovative methods, mainly from stochastic
analysis, that play a fundamental role in the mathematical modelling of
finance and insurance: the theory of stochastic processes, optimal and
stochastic control, stochastic differential equations, convex analysis
and duality theory. Five topics are treated in detail: Utility
maximization in incomplete markets; the theory of nonlinear expectations
and its relationship with the theory of risk measures in a dynamic
setting; credit risk modelling; the interplay between finance and
insurance; incomplete information in the context of economic equilibrium
and insider trading.