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Recursive utility and optimal capital accumulation. I: Existence. (English) Zbl 0679.90014
This paper demonstrates existence of optimal capital accumulation paths when the planner’s preferences are represented by a recursive objective functional. Time preference is flexible. Mathematically, the problem is as follows: $\max imize\quad \int^{\infty}_{0}L(t,k,\dot k)\exp (\int^{\infty}_{0}R(s,k,\dot k)ds)dt,$ s.t. k: $${\mathbb{R}}_+\to {\mathbb{R}}^ m$$ is an absolutely continuous function; $$\dot k\in G(t,k)$$ a.e.; $$0\leq k(0)\leq x$$, where L: $$\Omega \to {\mathbb{R}}_+$$ and R: $$\Omega$$ $$\to {\mathbb{R}}$$ are continuous on $$\Omega$$ and convex in k, which are the felicity function and the discounting function of the economy respectively; $$\Omega \subset {\mathbb{R}}\times {\mathbb{R}}^ m\times {\mathbb{R}}^ m$$ is the technology set of the economy and $$G(t,k)=\{y: (t,k,y)\in \Omega \}$$ is the investment correspondence, which is compact-convex- valued and upper semicontinuous in t. Existence of optimal paths is addressed via the classical Weierstrass theorem. An improved version of a lemma due to Varaiya proves compactness of the feasible set for the compact-open topology. A monotonicity argument is combined with a powerful theorem of Cesari to demonstrate upper semicontinuity.
Reviewer: S.Shi

##### MSC:
 91B62 Economic growth models 91B28 Finance etc. (MSC2000) 49J45 Methods involving semicontinuity and convergence; relaxation
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