124 research outputs found

    Cheap Talk, Gullibility, and Welfare in an Environmental Taxation Game

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    We consider a simple dynamic model of environmental taxation that exhibits time inconsistency. There are two categories of firms, Believers, who take the tax announcements made by the Regulator to face value, and Non-Believers, who perfectly anticipate the Regulator's decisions, albeit at a cost. The proportion of Believers and Non- Believers changes over time depending on the relative profits of both groups. We show that the Regulator can use misleading tax announcements to steer the economy to an equilibrium that is Pareto superior to the solutions usually suggested in the literature. Depending upon the initial proportion of Believers, the Regulator may prefer a fast or a low speed of reaction of the firms to differences in Believers/Non-Believers profits.Environmental policy, Emissions taxes, Time inconsistency, Heterogeneous agents, Bounded rationality, Learning, Multiple equilibria, Stackelberg games

    Optimal control of linear econometric models with intermittent controls

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    Dynamic Programming is used to derive the optimal feedback solution to the minimization of a quadratic welfare loss-functional subject to a linear econometric model, when the value of some instrument variables can not be optimized in every model period, but only in single ones. In this way, the relative inertia of fiscal policy-making, as compared to monetary policymaking, can e.g. be taken into account. Analytical expressions are derived for the optimal feedback rules and for the minimum expected losses, and literative schemes are proposed for their numerical computation. It is suggested that a numerical analysis of the economic gain to be realized by making more frequent adjustment of fiscal policy variables than is actually the case could yield valuable information for policy-makers

    Optimal stabilization policy with delayed controls and imperfect state measurements

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    The standard optimal control solutions of the macroeconomic stabilization problem - i.e. essentially: the open- and closed-loop solution - are not necessarily implementable or optimal in real-life situations. This is because they do not take into account the time necessary to measure the economy's state and to realize the policy measures physically. In this paper, Dynamic Programming is used to derive, the best implementable solution to the optimisation of a quadratic welfare loss-functional subject to a linear econometric model when there are such delays. Two cases are considered: a) Perfect, but delayed state measurements are possible; b) Only imperfect, delayed measurements are available. In both cases, the analytical characterization of the solution immediately suggests practical schemes for the numerical computation of the optimal policy sequence

    Globale Optimalität kurzsichtiger Entscheidungen unter Unsicherheit

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    Production and Finance in EURACE

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    EURACE is a major FP6 STREP project aiming at constructing anexhaustive agent-based model of the European economy, populated by avery large number of sophisticated, autonomous agents. The EURACEmodel, which has an explicit spatial structure, includes all the majormarkets considered in quantitative macroeconomic modelling (consumergoods, investment goods, labour, credit and finance). It offers aunique opportunity for studying, from a new perspective, theempirically observed but theoretically poorly understood link betweenthe real and the financial sphere of a modern economy. After summarilypresenting the main features of EURACE, this paper describes in moredetail the newly developed financial management module thatintermediates between the real and the financial spheres in EURACE. Ina nutshell, this module defines the link between the hiring andinvestment behavior of the firms as a function of the revenues theyobtain by selling their products, of the money they can raise on thecredit and financial markets, of their dividend policy, and othermajor aspects of financial decision-making.Agent-based macroeconomics; Financial policy; Parallel computing

    Quantitative Bestimmung und dynamische Bewertung optimaler wirtschaftspolitischer Entscheidungen

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    This article offers an introduction to Quantitative Economic Policy, i.e. the use of econometric models together with mathematical optimization methods for the analysis and quantitative determination of optimal macroeconomic policy. The corresponding basic methodology, optimal feedback stochastic control of linear econometric modeis given a quadratic cost functional, is presented with particular regard to its practical application. The method is then applied for demonstration purposes to an econometric model of the Federal Republic of Germany

    Learning Benevolent Leadership in a Heterogenous Agents Economy

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    This paper studies the potential commitment value of cheap talkinflation announcements in an agent-based dynamic extension of theKydland-Prescott model. In every period, the policy maker makesa non-binding inflation announcement before setting the actualinflation rate. It updates its decisions using individual evolutionarylearning. The private agents can choose between two differentforecasting strategies: They can either set their forecast equal tothe announcement or compute it, at a cost, using an adaptive learningscheme. They switch between these two strategies as a function ofinformation about the associated payoffs they obtain throughword-of-mouth, choosing always the currently most favorable one.Weshow that the policy maker is able to sustain a situation with apositive but fluctuating fraction of believers. This equilibrium isPareto superior to the outcome predicted by standard theory. Theinfluence of changes in key parameters and the impact of transmissionof information among nonbelievers on the dynamics are studied.time inconsistency; bounded rationality; forecast and agentheterogeneity; cheap talk; evolutionary learning

    EURACE: A Massively Parallel Agent-Based Model of the European Economy

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    EURACE is a major European attempt to construct an agent-based model of the European economy with a very large population of autonomous, purposive agents interacting in a complicated economic environment. To create it, major advances are needed, in particular in terms of economic modeling and software engineering.In this paper, we describe the general structure of the economic model developed for EURACE and present the Flexible Large-scale Agent Modeling Environment (FLAME) that will be used to describe the agents and run the model on massively parallel supercomputers. Illustrative simulations with a simplifiedmodel based on EURACE's labour market module are presented.Agent-based Computational Economics; X-Machines; Parallelcomputation.

    Cheap Talk, Gullibility, and Welfare in an Environmental Taxation Game

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    We consider a simple dynamic model of environmental taxation that exhibits time inconsistency. There are two categories of firms, Believers, who take the tax announcements made by the Regulator to face value, and Non-Believers, who perfectly anticipate the Regulator's decisions, albeit at a cost. The proportion of Believers and Non- Believers changes over time depending on the relative profits of both groups. We show that the Regulator can use misleading tax announcements to steer the economy to an equilibrium that is Pareto superior to the solutions usually suggested in the literature. Depending upon the initial proportion of Believers, the Regulator may prefer a fast or a low speed of reaction of the firms to differences in Believers/Non-Believers profits
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