Zhaneta Tancheva (Tilburg University)

“Optimal Risk Sharing with Time Inconsistency and Long-Run Risk”

Abstract: I examine the role of time inconsistency, modeled by hyperbolic discounting, for the dynamics of asset prices and the wealth distribution between agents. Naive time-inconsistent investors with recursive preferences overconsume and have a lower effective elasticity of intertemporal substitution (EIS) than otherwise similar investors who are time-consistent. In both survival and overlapping-generations economies with i.i.d. consumption growth, I show that the suboptimal consumption and saving decisions of the naive time-inconsistent investors endogenously generate long-run risks in the consumption dynamics of the time-consistent agents. As a result, the presence of naive shortsighted investors increases the risk-free rate, volatility, and risk premium in the economy.