When people decide about saving and consumption across the various periods of their life time they take into account their life expectancy when comparing present and future needs and resources for satisfying them. The experimental design, applied at two sites (Humboldt-University at Berlin and...

We extend the analysis of the intertemporal utility maximization problem for Hindy-Huang-Kreps utilities reported in Bank and Riedel (1998) to the stochastic case. Existence and uniqueness of optimal consumption plans are established under arbitrary convex portfolio constraints, including both...

This paper investigates the behaviour in repeated decision situations. The experimental study shows that subjects show low or no risk-aversion, but put very high value on the opportunity to sell the lottery in every stage of the decision problem. There is evidence that risk attitudes depend on...

Empirical studies in family economics usually rely on questionnaires, statistical or panel data. Here we try to study experimentally some crucial aspects of engaging in a marriage. First the female partner can end the relationship or suggest one of the two forms of joint venture. Whereas a full...

We study the intertemporal utility maximization problem for Hindy-Huang-Kreps utilities. Necessary and sufficient conditions for optimality are given. An explicit solution is provided for a large class of utility functions. In particular, the case of separable power utilities with a finite time...

The influence of heterogeneous time preferences on the term structure is investigated. Motivated by the Preferred Habitat Theory of Modigliani and Sutch, a model for intertemporal preferences accounting for preferred habitats is proposed. In a heterogeneous world, preferred habitats can explain...

We prove existence of an Arrow-Debreu equilibrium when agents' preferences exhibit local substitution in the sense of Hindy, Huang, and Kreps (1992). Efficient allocations and supporting price functionals are identified and characterized. Under Hindy Huang Kreps preferences, equilibrium price...

The utility maximization problem of "ratchet investors" who do not tolerate any decline in their consumption rate is solved explicitly for all felicity functions in a Markovian framework which includes Brownian motion and Poisson processes as special cases. The optimal consumption plan turns out...