IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/nhhfms/2014_019.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Life Cycle Model with Recursive Utility: New insights on optimal consumption

Author

Listed:
  • Aase, Knut K.

    (Dept. of Business and Management Science, Norwegian School of Economics)

Abstract

We analyze optimal consumption, including pensions, during the life time of a consumer using the life cycle model, when the consumer has recursive utility. The model framework is that of continuous-time with diffusion driven uncertainty. The relationship between substitution of consumption and risk aversion is highlighted, and clarified in the context of the life cycle model. We find the optimal consumption in closed form, and illustrate that the recursive utility consumer may prefer to smooth consumption shocks across time and states of the world. This agent consumes and invests to mitigate shocks to the economy, in situations where the conventional consumer is just myopic. This has consequences for what products the financial industry may choose to offer. The resulting model can be used to explain empirical puzzles for aggregates, indicating a plausible choice for the parameters of the utility function, for for the 'average' consumer in the context of life cycle model.

Suggested Citation

  • Aase, Knut K., 2014. "The Life Cycle Model with Recursive Utility: New insights on optimal consumption," Discussion Papers 2014/19, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science, revised 16 Oct 2015.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:nhhfms:2014_019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2380446
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 1985. "The equity premium: A puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 145-161, March.
    2. Knut K. Aase, 2016. "Recursive utility using the stochastic maximum principle," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 7(3), pages 859-887, November.
    3. Weil, Philippe, 1989. "The equity premium puzzle and the risk-free rate puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 401-421, November.
    4. Kimball, Miles S & Sahm, Claudia R & Shapiro, Matthew D, 2008. "Imputing Risk Tolerance From Survey Responses," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 103(483), pages 1028-1038.
    5. Duffie, Darrel & Lions, Pierre-Louis, 1992. "PDE solutions of stochastic differential utility," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 577-606.
    6. Merton, Robert C., 1971. "Optimum consumption and portfolio rules in a continuous-time model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 373-413, December.
    7. Fatih Guvenen, 2009. "A Parsimonious Macroeconomic Model for Asset Pricing," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(6), pages 1711-1750, November.
    8. Aase, Knut K., 2015. "Life Insurance And Pension Contracts I: The Time Additive Life Cycle Model," ASTIN Bulletin, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(1), pages 1-47, January.
    9. Duffie, Darrell & Epstein, Larry G, 1992. "Stochastic Differential Utility," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(2), pages 353-394, March.
    10. Aase, Knut K., 2014. "Heterogeneity and limited stock market Participation," Discussion Papers 2014/5, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science, revised 25 Mar 2015.
    11. Breeden, Douglas T., 1979. "An intertemporal asset pricing model with stochastic consumption and investment opportunities," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 265-296, September.
    12. Mossin, Jan, 1969. "A Note on Uncertainty and Preferences in a Temporal Context," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(1), pages 172-174, March.
    13. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1978. "Asset Prices in an Exchange Economy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(6), pages 1429-1445, November.
    14. Paul A. Samuelson, 2011. "Lifetime Portfolio Selection by Dynamic Stochastic Programming," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & Edward O Thorp & William T Ziemba (ed.), THE KELLY CAPITAL GROWTH INVESTMENT CRITERION THEORY and PRACTICE, chapter 31, pages 465-472, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    15. Francisco Gomes & Alexander Michaelides, 2008. "Asset Pricing with Limited Risk Sharing and Heterogeneous Agents," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(1), pages 415-448, January.
    16. Merton, Robert C, 1969. "Lifetime Portfolio Selection under Uncertainty: The Continuous-Time Case," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 51(3), pages 247-257, August.
    17. Kreps, David M & Porteus, Evan L, 1978. "Temporal Resolution of Uncertainty and Dynamic Choice Theory," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 185-200, January.
    18. Duffie, Darrell & Epstein, Larry G, 1992. "Asset Pricing with Stochastic Differential Utility," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(3), pages 411-436.
    19. Hakansson, Nils H, 1969. "Optimal Investment and Consumption Strategies under Risk, an Uncertain Lifetime, and Insurance," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 10(3), pages 443-466, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Li, Minqiang, 2010. "Asset Pricing - A Brief Review," MPRA Paper 22379, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Knut K. Aase, 2016. "Recursive utility using the stochastic maximum principle," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 7(3), pages 859-887, November.
    3. Aase, Knut K., 2015. "Life Insurance And Pension Contracts I: The Time Additive Life Cycle Model," ASTIN Bulletin, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(1), pages 1-47, January.
    4. Aase, Knut K., 2014. "Recursive utility and jump-diffusions," Discussion Papers 2014/9, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    5. Aase, Knut K., 2014. "Heterogeneity and limited stock market Participation," Discussion Papers 2014/5, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science, revised 25 Mar 2015.
    6. Knut K. Aase & Petter Bjerksund, 2021. "The Optimal Spending Rate versus the Expected Real Return of a Sovereign Wealth Fund," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-36, September.
    7. John Y. Campbell, 2000. "Asset Pricing at the Millennium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1515-1567, August.
    8. Chabakauri, Georgy, 2010. "Asset pricing with heterogeneous investors and portfolio constraints," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 43142, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Kihlstrom, Richard, 2009. "Risk aversion and the elasticity of substitution in general dynamic portfolio theory: Consistent planning by forward looking, expected utility maximizing investors," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(9-10), pages 634-663, September.
    10. Stan Olijslagers & Sweder van Wijnbergen, 2019. "Discounting the Future: on Climate Change, Ambiguity Aversion and Epstein-Zin Preferences," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 19-030/VI, Tinbergen Institute.
    11. Massimo Guidolin & Francesca Rinaldi, 2013. "Ambiguity in asset pricing and portfolio choice: a review of the literature," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 74(2), pages 183-217, February.
    12. Kabderian Dreyer, Johannes & Sharma, Vivek & Smith, William, 2023. "Warm-glow investment and the underperformance of green stocks," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 546-570.
    13. Max Gillman & Michal Kejak & Michal Pakoš, 2015. "Learning about Rare Disasters: Implications For Consumption and Asset Prices," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 19(3), pages 1053-1104.
    14. Wang, Gaowang, 2014. "Model Uncertainty, the Spirit of Capitalism and Asset Pricing," MPRA Paper 62421, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 03 Mar 2015.
    15. Kraft, Holger & Seifried, Frank Thomas, 2014. "Stochastic differential utility as the continuous-time limit of recursive utility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 528-550.
    16. Alessandro Bucciol, 2007. "Life-Cycle Models, Economic Puzzles and Temptation Preferences," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 66(1), pages 115-144, March.
    17. Aase, Knut K., 2015. "The equity premium in a production economy; A new perspective involving recursive utility," Discussion Papers 2015/15, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    18. Smith, William T., 1999. "Risk, the Spirit of Capitalism and Growth: The Implications of a Preference for Capital," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 241-262, April.
    19. Goncalo dos Reis & Vadim Platonov, 2020. "Forward utility and market adjustments in relative investment-consumption games of many players," Papers 2012.01235, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2022.
    20. Ai, Hengjie & Kiku, Dana, 2013. "Growth to value: Option exercise and the cross section of equity returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 325-349.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    The life cycle model; recursive utility; consumption smoothing; consumption puzzles; the stochastic maximum principle; the equity premium puzzle; pension and life insurance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:nhhfms:2014_019. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Stein Fossen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dfnhhno.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.