On the Existence of Recursive Utility

Asen Kochov

No 12091, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Recursive utility functions are often defined implicitly, as the solution of a functional equation known as the Koopmans recursion. As conditions for a unique solution can be demanding, a recent literature has tackled the problem of multiplicity, advocating that one focus attention on either the least or greatest solution, which possess a number of attractive properties. While a least solution can be shown to exist, I show that in the most general formulation of the problem, a greatest solution need not. The goal of the paper is to provide a sufficient condition for the existence of a greatest solution, which I term the weakly contractive property and which generalizes the usual contractive property sufficient for uniqueness.

Keywords: recursive utility; greatest and lowest fixed point; contractions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C6 D9 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mic
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp12091.pdf (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:ces:ceswps:_12091

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe ().