Optimal lifetime consumption and investment under a drawdown constraint (Q1003344)

The authors study the infinite-horizon optimal consumption and investment problem when the wealth never falls below a fixed fraction of its current maximum. This is the so-called drawdown constraint. Fund managers offer this type of guarantee in order to satisfy the risk aversion of the investors. The infinite-horizon utility maximization of future consumption under the drawdown constraint is considered. The utility function is a general \(C^1\) increasing and strictly concave function whose asymptotic elasticity is bounded by some level depending on the drawdown parameter. The main result consists in deriving an explicit expression for the value function of the fund manager, together with the optimal consumption and investment strategy. The key idea in order to guess a candidate solution is to pass from the dynamic programming equation to the partial differential equation satisfied by the dual indirect utility function. In order to prove that the thus derived candidate solution is indeed the value function of the optimal consumption-investment problem, a verification argument is used which requires a convenient transversality condition. Here, the above mentioned restrictions on the utility functions are required.