Abstract This paper introduces optimal expected utility (OEU) risk measures, investigates their main properties and puts them in perspective to alternative risk measures and notions of certainty equivalents. By taking the investor’s point of view, OEU maximizes the sum of capital available...

We establish a convergence theorem that shows that discrete-time recursive utility, as developed by Kreps and Porteus (1978), converges to stochastic differential utility, as introduced by Duffie and Epstein (1992), in the continuous-time limit of vanishing grid size.

We study consumption-portfolio and asset pricing frameworks with recursive preferences and unspanned risk. We show that in both cases, portfolio choice and asset pricing, the value function of the investor/representative agent can be characterized by a specific semilinear partial differential...

The observed hump-shaped life-cycle pattern in individuals' consumption cannot be explained by the classical consumption-savings model. We explicitly solve a model with utility of both consumption and leisure and with educational decisions affecting future wages. We show optimal consumption is...

We show that the optimal consumption of an individual over the life cycle can have the hump shape (inverted U-shape) observed empirically if the preferences of the individual exhibit internal habit formation. In the absence of habit formation, an impatient individual would prefer a decreasing...

In a general semi-martingale financial market with possibly nonlinear wealth dynamics, incomplete information, and ambiguity, we show that the optimal consumption decision of an agent with logarithmic preferences can be separated from the agent's investment decisions. Using minimal assumptions...

We investigate worst-case optimal consumption and portfolio decisions under the threat of a market crash on an infinite time horizon. We provide a closed-form solution for constant relative risk aversion and establish a rigorous verification result. More specifically, using martingale arguments...