We study asset pricing with consumption frictions. Frictions in consumption include adjustment costs which prevent a consumer from adjusting consumption freely, due to transaction costs, commitments, search and learning costs, and psychological costs. The stochastic discount factor is determined...

We study the consumption and portfolio selection problem of an agent who faces consumption irreversibility: there is disutility from changing consumption levels. The derived preference exhibits intertemporal loss aversion toward consumption changes with the previous consumption level being the...

We study a pure exchange economy with two groups of agents who exhibit different consumption patterns: one changes consumption immediately in response to shocks, but the other delays the response. We investigate the linkages among the consumption heterogeneity, business cycles, and asset returns...

In this paper, we study the economic effects of social insurance benefits for retired people. Specifically, we study a model in which all retired people are provided with a stream of payments by the social insurance program and investigate the consumption, investment, and retirement decisions....

We study the consumption and portfolio selection problem of a finitely lived agent who derives utility from the stock of durable goods. We show that the agent's effective relative risk aversion implied by the optimal portfolio tends to decline and approaches zero, as the planning horizon...

We study a finite horizon optimal contracting problem with limited commitment. A risk-neutral principal enters into an insurance contract with a risk-averse agent who receives a stochastic income stream and is unable to make commitment to keep the contract. This problem involves an infinite...

In this article we provide a short survey on continuous-time portfolio selection. We explain the pioneering contribution of Merton and the use of dynamic programming. Then, we discuss Bismut's application of the Pontryagin maximum principle to portfolio selection and the dual martingale...

We study an optimal consumption, investment, and retirement decision of an economic agent with borrowing constraints under a general class of utility functions. We transform the problem into a dual two-person zero-sum game, which involves two players: a stopper who is a maximizer and chooses a...