Sensitivity of Optimal Consumption Streams

Abstract

We study the sensitivity of optimal consumption streams with respect to perturbations of the random endowment. At the leading order, the consumption adjustment does not matter: any choice that matches the budget constraint simply shifts the original utility by the marginal value of the perturbation. Nontrivial results can be obtained by considering the next-to-leading order. Here, one first solves the problem for a deterministic perturbation, which leads to a "prognosis measure". The desired consumption adjustment for a general endowment perturbation is in turn given by the conditional expectation of the latter, computed under this measure and appropriately weighted with the conditional expectations of the remaining risk-tolerance.

Keywords: optimal consumption, random endowment, asymptotic analysis

JEL Classification: G11, D91, E21