Heterogeneous Beliefs in a Continuous-Time Model

In an exchange economy under uncertainty populated by consumers having constant and equal relative risk aversion but heterogeneous probabilistic beliefs, we analyze the nature of the representative consumer's probabilistic belief and discount rates. We prove a formula that implies that the representative consumer's discount rates are raised or lowered by belief heterogeneity depending on whether the constant relative risk aversion is greater or smaller than one. We also show that the representative consumer's discount rates may be a hyperbolic function of time even when the individual consumers' discount rates are equal to one another, as long as their beliefs are heterogeneous.