This paper focuses on the fundamentals of discrete-time models using recursive utility. We examine the relation between preferences, utility, and aggregator, the existence of optimal paths, and several notions of impatience. In the one-sector model, we characterize optimal paths and derive a turnpike theorem. Topics beyond the scope of this paper include continuous time recursive utility, model...

In this article, we show how the degree of risk aversion, discounting, and preference for intertemporal substitution for a natural resource manager can be structurally estimated within a recursive utility framework. We focus on the management of a reservoir in California, and test the data for consistency with a recursive utility model specification versus standard time-additive separability. T...

Stochastic trees are semi-Markov processes represented using tree diagrams. Such trees have been found useful for prescriptive modeling of temporal medical treatment choice. We consider utility functions over stochastic trees which permit recursive evaluation in a graphically intuitive manner analogous to decision tree rollback. Such rollback is computationally intractable unless a low-dimensio...

This paper shows that a finite-horizon version of the robust control criterion appearing in recent papers by Hansen, Sargent, and their coauthors can be described as recursive utility, which in continuous time takes the form of the Stochastic Differential Utility (SDU) of Duffie and Epstein (1992). While it has previously been noted that Bellman equations arising in robust control settings are ...