Necessity of hyperbolic absolute risk aversion for the concavity of consumption functions

B-Tier
Journal: Journal of Mathematical Economics
Year: 2021
Volume: 94
Issue: C

Score contribution per author:

2.011 = (α=2.01 / 1 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Carroll and Kimball (1996) have shown that, in the class of utility functions that are strictly increasing, strictly concave, and have nonnegative third derivatives, hyperbolic absolute risk aversion (HARA) is sufficient for the concavity of consumption functions in general consumption-saving problems. This paper shows that HARA is necessary, implying the concavity of consumption is not a robust prediction outside the HARA class.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:mateco:v:94:y:2021:i:c:s0304406820301373
Journal Field
Theory
Author Count
1
Added to Database
2026-01-29