Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 44 2 d Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
The stated portfolio has initial wealth and terminal payoffs and . For CRRA utility, . The market is complete, and an interior optimum in its positive payoff domain has marginal utility proportional to the unique state-price density. ThereforeThe Lagrange multiplier is , and both state equations are satisfied. Part (b) verifies sufficiency and strict concavity gives uniqueness of the optimal payoff. This illustrates risk aversion recovered from an optimal two-state payoff.