Abstract

This paper explores the optimal consumption and investment behavior of an individual who derives utility from the ratio between his consumption and an endogenous habit. We obtain closed-form policies under general utility functionals and stochastic investment opportunities, by developing a non-trivial linearization to the budget constraint. This enables us to explicitly characterize how habit formation a ffects the marginal propensity to consume and optimal stock-bond investments. We also show that in a setting which combines habit formation with Epstein-Zin utility, consumption no longer grows at unrealistically high rates at high ages and investments in risky assets decrease.

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