English

Bifurcation in optimal retirement

Portfolio Management 2025-06-04 v1

Abstract

We study optimal consumption and retirement using a Cobb-Douglas utility and a simple model in which an interesting bifurcation arises. With high wealth, individuals plan to retire. With low wealth they plan to never retire. At a critical level of initial wealth they may choose to defer this decision, leading to a continuum of wealth trajectories with identical utilities.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2506.02155,
  title  = {Bifurcation in optimal retirement},
  author = {Bushra Shehnam Ashraf and Thomas S. Salisbury},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.02155},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T02:55:18.509Z