Efficient intertemporal allocations with recursive utility

Finance

IFA Working Paper

1998

In this article, our objective is to determine efficient allocations in economies with multiple agents having recursive utility functions. Our main result is to show that in a multiagent economy, the problem of determining efficient allocations can be characterized in terms of a single value function (that of a social planner), rather than multiple functions (one for each investor), as has been proposed thus far (Duffie, Geoffard and Skiadas (1994)). We then show how the single value function can be identified using the familiar technique of stochastic dynamic programming. We achieve these goals by first extending to a stochastic environment Geoffard's (1996) concept of variational utility and his result that variational utility is equivalent to recursive utility, and then using these results to characterize allocations in a multiagent setting.

This working paper was published in the Journal of Economic Theory 2000 Vol 93:2 p 240-259 (see separate entry)

Institute of Finance and Accounting

FIN 267

IFA Working Paper

No