Computation of equilibria in heterogeneous agent models

This paper essentially puts together procedures that are used in the computation of equilibria in models with a very large number of heterogeneous agents. It is not a complete description of all procedures used in the literature. It describes procedures that deal with infinitely lived agent versions of the growth model with and without aggregate uncertainty, overlapping generations models, and dynamic political economy models.Econometric models

The Balance of Payments and Borrowing Constraints: An Alternative View of the Mexican Crisis

In standard models of the balance of payments, crises occur when investors begin to doubt the credibility of the government's commitment to its exchange rate policy. In this paper, we develop an alternative model in which balance of payments crises occur even if the credibility of government fiscal, monetary, and exchange rate policies is never in doubt. In this alternative model, international lending is constrained by the risk of repudiation. Balance of payments crises occur when the government and citizens of a country hit their international borrowing constraints. Our model is broadly consistent with events in Mexico from 1987-1995. More generally, our model suggests that countries which undertake sweeping macroeconomic and structural reforms should expect to face a balance of payments crisis when they exhaust their access to international capital inflows.

The balance of payments and borrowing constraints: an alternative view of the Mexican crisis

In this paper we develop a model in which a country faces a balance of payments crisis if constraints on its international borrowing bind. We use the model to describe the dynamics of the trade balance, capital account, and balance of payments of a country that borrows to finance consumption following sweeping macroeconomic and structural reforms and then hits constraints on its international borrowing. We compare the predictions of this theoretical example with events in Mexico from 1987 through 1995.Financial crises - Mexico ; Balance of payments ; Mexico

Life insurance and household consumption.

In this paper, we use data of life insurance holdings by age, sex, and marital status to infer how individuals value consumption in different demographic stages. Essentially, we use revealed preference to estimate equivalence scales and altruism simultaneously in the context of a fully specified model with agents facing U.S. demographic features and with access to savings markets and life insurance markets. Our findings indicate that individuals are very caring for their dependents, that there are large economies of scale in consumption, that children are costly but wives with children produce a lot of goods in the home and that while females seem to have some form of habits created by marriage, men do not. These findings contrast sharply with the standard notions of equivalence scales.Insurance

On the equilibrium concept for overlapping generations organizations

A necessary feature for equilibrium is that beliefs about the behavior of other agents are rational. We argue that in stationary OLG environments this implies that any future generation in the same situation as the initial generation must do as well as the initial generation did in that situation. We conclude that the existing equilibrium concepts in the literature do not satisfy this condition. We then propose an alternative equilibrium concept, organizational equilibrium, that satisfies this condition. We show that equilibrium exists, it is unique, and it improves over autarky without achieving optimality. Moreover, the equilibrium can be readily found by solving a maximization program.Economics ; Equilibrium (Economics) - Mathematical models

It’s More Than Just Music: A Review of \u3cem\u3eUrban Science Education for the Hip-Hop Generation\u3c/em\u3e

A review of the book Urban Science Education for the Hip-Hop Generation, by Christopher Emdin (Sense Publishing, 2010)

Finite-Life, Private-Information Theory of Unsecured Debt

We propose a theory of unsecured debt that is based on the existence of private information about a person's type and on the fact that some debtors have the incentive to forego bankruptcy in order to signal their type. The theory formalizes the idea that the type of a person is relevant to trading partners in many exchange situations and by resisting opportunistic behavior in one exchange context, a person may signal valuable information about his type to trading partners in other exchange contexts. In the model, by resisting opportunistic behavior in the credit market borrowers can signal their type to the insurance market. The model is consistent with the observation that insurers use credit scores to predict the likelihood of a person filing insurance claims.Adverse Selection, Insurance, Credit Scores, Default Risk

Considerações sobre o De genesi de Nicolau de Cusa. Pensar para além da coincidentia oppositorum à luz do nome enigmático “idem”

En De docta ignorantia (1440) Nicolás de Cusa presenta la primera gran formulación de su sistema de pensamento. En De coniecturis, cuya redacción inicia en ese tiempo, no sólo completa la antropología y la teoría del conocimiento sugerida en De docta ignorantia sino también presenta la propuesta de pensar lo divino más allá de la coincidentia oppositorum. En los años siguientes, compone un conjunto de opúsculos en los que regressa sobre los temas abordados en las obras precedentes. Entre ellos ocupa un lugar notório el diálogo De genesi (1447). Allí el Cusano especula sobre uno de los temas caros a su investigación, i.e. la relación entre lo uno y lo múltiple, a través de un nuevo nombre enigmático: "idem". Nuestro trabajo busca mostrar que Nicolás de Cusa conjetura sobre aquel problema -en términos de identidad y diferencia- recogiendo su propuesta de pensar lo absoluto más allá de la coincidentia oppositorum.In De docta ignorantia (1440), Nicholas of Cusa presents the first comprehensive formulation of his system of thought. In De coniecturis, which he began writing at the time, he not only completes the anthropology and theory of knowledge, which he suggested in De docta ignorantia, but also presents the proposal of thinking the divine beyond thecoincidentia oppositorum. In the following years, he writes a group of opuscula in which he revists the topics treated in his previous works. Notorious amongst them is the dialog De genesi (1447). In it, Cusanus speculates on one of the most cherished subjects of his investigation, i.e. the relationship between the one and the multiple, by means of a new aenigmatic name: “idem”. Our work seeks to show that Nicholas of Cusa conjectures about that problem –in terms of identity and difference– in taking up his proposal of thinking the absolute beyond the coincidentia oppositorum.Fil: Gonzalez Rios, Hector Jose. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires; Argentin

La fuerza expresiva de la metáfora "tierra de nadie": Consideraciones sobre espacios libres de dominación

Como síntomas del proceso moderno de globalización o mundialización de la cultura pueden apreciarse grandes transformaciones que han resquebrajado no sólo la certeza sino también la confianza en la existencia y posibilidad de una clara clasificación y demarcación de límites, representaciones, fronteras y órdenes. Como una de las consecuencias de estos procesos puede apuntarse el surgimiento de espacios a los que puede denominarse libres de dominación o tierras de nadie. La metáfora tierra de nadie, que bien se dibuja en el territorio que separa a dos bandos o facciones que se enfrentan en un campo de batalla. La intención de este texto breve no es denunciar irreflexivamente el carácter negativo o bien peyorativo de estos ?desórdenes? o nuevos espacios, sino más bien considerar crítica y reflexivamente la fuerza activa y creativa de tierras de nadie o espacios libres de dominación, que -por carecer de fronteras, ordenes, controles o dueños- han quedado liberados. Y esto lo mostraremos, desde una perspectiva estética, a partir de una breve memoria de la 26ª Bienal de San Pablo (2004), que tuvo por tema convocante esta metáfora.Fil: Gonzalez Rios, Hector Jose. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras; Argentin