Life insurance decisions under recursive utility

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

  • Ninna Reitzel Jensen

In this paper, we generalize recursive utility to include lifetime uncertainty and utility from bequest. The generalization applies to discrete-time as well as continuous-time recursive utility, and it is an important step forward in the development of recursive utility. We formalize the problem of optimal consumption, investment, and life insurance choice under recursive utility, and we state a verification theorem with a generalized Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation. Our generalization of recursive utility allows us to study optimal consumption, investment, and life insurance choice under separation of (market) risk aversion, elasticity of inter-temporal substitution, and elasticity of substitution between bequest and future utility. The separation gives rise to hump-shaped consumption patterns as observed in realized consumption.

Original languageEnglish
JournalScandinavian Actuarial Journal
Volume2019
Issue number3
Pages (from-to)204-227
Number of pages24
ISSN0346-1238
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019

    Research areas

  • generalized Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation, hump-shaped consumption, lifetime uncertainty, Recursive utility, stochastic control

ID: 222974371