How does habit formation affect the dynamic demand for insurance and risky assets? We examine a dynamic portfolio-saving choice problem for two structures of preferences. In the first model, the consumer faces an exogenous path of minimum levels of subsistence over time. In the second model, these levels are subject to habit persistence, i.e. they are increasing in past consumption. We show that adding habit persistence to the initial model substantially reduces the aversion to risk. The intuition is that the positive correlation between current portfolio returns and future levels of subsistence helps time-diversifying risks. This result goes against the widespread idea that habit persistence can resolve the equity premium puzzle.

习惯养成如何影响对保险和风险资产的动态需求？我们研究了两种偏好结构的动态投资组合节省选择问题。在第一个模型中，随着时间的推移，消费者面临最低生存水平的外生路径。在第二个模型中，这些水平易受习惯持续性的影响，即过去的消费水平在不断提高。我们表明，将习惯持久性添加到初始模型中可以大大减少对风险的厌恶。直觉是，当前投资组合收益与未来生存水平之间的正相关性有助于时间分散风险。这个结果违背了普遍的习惯，即习惯持久性可以解决股权溢价之谜。