Expected Life-Time Utility and Hedging Demands in a Partially Observable Economy

Abstract

This paper analyzes the expected life-time utility and the hedging demands in an exchange only, representative agent general equilibrium under incomplete information. We derive an expression for the investor's expected life-time utility, and analyze his hedging demands for intertemporal changes in the stochastic unobservable growth of the endowment process and the changing quality of information regarding these changes. The hedging demands consist of two components, which could work in opposite directions so that a conservative consumer may end up having positive hedging demands. Our results are qualitatively different from those prevailing under constant growth (cf. Brennan, 1998; Ziegler, 2003, Ch. 2).

Keywords: Learning, incomplete information, equilibrium, hedging demands

JEL Classification: C13, G11, G12