How to Compute Equilibrium Prices in 1891

Irving Fisher's Ph.D. thesis, submitted to Yale University in 1891, contains a fully articulated general equilibrium model presented with the broad scope and formal mathematical clarity associated with Walras and his successors. In addition, Fisher presents a remarkable hydraulic apparatus for calculating equilibrium prices and the resulting distribution of society's endowments among the agents in the economy. In this paper we provide an analytical description of Fisher's apparatus, and report the results of simulating the mechanical/hydraulic "machine," illustrating the ability of the apparatus to "compute" equilibrium prices and also to find multiple equilibria.Fisher, general equilibrium, hydraulic apparatus, equilibrium prices, computable general equilibrium, algorithms

The Financial Valuation of the Return to Capital

macroeconomics, financial valuation

Fundamental Value and Market Value

Much of James Tobin's professional life has been devoted to studying the interrelationship between the goods and financial markets. His general equilibrium approaches stresses the interaction of the demand for financial assets with the decision to accumulate productive capital. His emphasis on q, the ratio of market value of assets to their replacement cost, has shaped how students of the aggregate economy understand the link between the stock market and fixed investment. This paper examines the empirical linkage between fundamental returns on physical corporate assets and market return on financial claims on those assets. It defines the fundamental return as real cash flow divided by replacement cost. It examines whether the market return on individual firms respond more to aggregate shocks to the fundamental return or to the market return itself. It then examines whether aggregate market risk or aggregate fundamental risk is priced. Although market risk is priced, the paper does find that fundamental risk is an important factor in explaining risk premia.

On the Internationalization of Portfolios

Portfolio theory has been an important component of open economy macroeconomic models. In those models, it is essential to distinguish among several categories of assets, both foreign and domestic, and to specify the demands and supplies. This framework has become increasingly relevant. Movements of capital across regional and national boundaries, and across currencies, have exploded in volume, thanks to the dismantling of currency and exchange controls and other financial regulations and to revolutionary economies in technologies of communication and transactions. The globalization of financial markets was stimulated by the floating exchange rate regime established in 1973