Wealth Preferences and the Upper Tail of Consumption

Qingyin Ma and Alexis Akira Toda

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: We develop a theory of optimal saving when wealth enters utility. Relative curvatures of consumption and wealth utility, $\gamma$ and $\delta$, govern the upper-tail behavior. When $\delta \gamma$, they become asymptotically irrelevant. The framework encompasses joy-of-giving/warm-glow bequests under random mortality. A calibrated model shows that the asymptotic characterization is accurate at observed wealth levels and reproduces wealthy households' high saving rates.

Date: 2025-09, Revised 2026-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.12195 Latest version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:arx:papers:2509.12195

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers from arXiv.org
Bibliographic data for series maintained by arXiv administrators ().