Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 41 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
The PDF prints in the conditioning of the value function. Taken literally, nonnegative wealth and the state-price budget constraint force both wealth and consumption to remain zero, and the utility for has value . The meaningful value function underlying the subsequent requests uses ; the following calculation makes that source correction explicit.
Write . Differentiating the exponentially weighted consumption habit gives the habit-state dynamicsMultiplying initial wealth, initial habit, investments, and consumption by multiplies the wealth and habit paths by . The ratio is unchanged, while . Thus the homogeneous value isThis is a multiplicative habit utility model: higher habit makes utility more negative at fixed consumption.
Set , , and . The instantaneous reward isFor smooth increasing, strictly concave wealth value, the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation isThe effective consumption shadow price with habit changes from to . For , consumption maximization givesFor the supremum is infinite, and for its zero supremum is approached only as consumption tends to infinity; a finite interior optimum therefore requires . The portfolio maximum is .
Let , , and defineThe homogeneity derivatives areConsequently , and the reward conjugate is . The reduced habit equation isFor completeness its feedback controls are and .
The wealth-variable Legendre dual satisfies , , and . The effective shadow price becomesTherefore the dual equation for multiplicative habit investment iswith . The dependence of the reward conjugate on and is the remaining nonlinearity.
When , habit is fixed and the equation becomes a linear Euler equationThe forcing is a pure power . Thus the Euler differential equation method gives a power particular solution plus the two homogeneous characteristic powers in the nondegenerate case. Economically, this is the Merton consumption-investment problem with effective relative risk aversion and a constant reward multiplier. Writingits value and controls areIndeed solves the dual equation, since its characteristic polynomial at equals . Unlike the case, the fixed habit creates no feedback coupling between the dual value and the shadow price of consumption.