A Stochastic Overlapping Generations Economy with Inheritance

An overlapping generations model of an exchange economy is considered, with individuals having a finite expected life-span. Conditions concerning birth, death, inheritance and bequests are fully specified. Under such conditions, the existence of stationary Markov equilibrium is established in some generality, and several explicitly solvable examples are treated in detail.Overlapping generations, inheritance, stochastic process, life span

A Strategic Market Game with Secured Lending

We study stationary Markov equilibria for strategic, competitive games, in a market-economy model with one non-durable commodity, fiat money, borrowing/lending through a central bank or a money market, and a continuum of agents. These use fiat money in order to offset random fluctuations in their endowments of the commodity, are not allowed to borrow more than they can pay back (secured lending), and maximize expected discounted utility from consumption of the commodity. Their aggregate optimal actions determine dynamically prices and/or interest rates for borrowing and lending, in each period of play. In equilibrium, random fluctuations in endowment- and wealth-levels offset each other, and prices and interest rates remain constant. As in our related recent work, KSS (1994), we study in detail the individual agents' dynamic optimization problems, and the invariance measures for the associated, optimally controlled Markov chains. By appropriate aggregation, these individual problems lead to the construction of stationary Markov competitive equilibrium for the economy as a whole. Several examples are studied in detail, fairly general existence theorems are established, and open questions are indicated for further research.

Information and the Existence of Stationary Markovian Equilibrium

We describe conditions for the existence of a stationary Markovian equilibrium when total production or total endowment is a random variable. Apart from regularity assumptions, there are two crucial conditions: (i) low information -- agents are ignorant of both total endowment and their own endowments when they make decisions in a given period, and (ii) proportional endowments -- the endowment of each agent is in proportion, possibly a random proportion, to the total endowment. When these conditions hold, there is a stationary equilibrium. When they do not hold, such equilibrium need not exist.Information, stochastic process, money, and disequilibrium

A Stochastic Infinite-Horizon Economy with Secured Lending, or Unsecured Lending and Bankruptcy

Modeling problems for a monetary economy are discussed and some examples are presented in the context of an infinite-horizon economy with one or two types of traders, who use fiat money to buy a single perishable consumption good. Three instances are considered, all with transactions in fiat money. The first model has no borrowing or lending. The second model permits both borrowing and lending, but all loans are secured. The third model has borrowing and unsecured lending, and takes into account the presence of debtors who are unable to honor their debts and go bankrupt. Borrowing and depositing take place through an outside bank, although in some circumstances a money market could be used instead. Conditions for different forms of lending are discussed. This is a survey of three technical papers, where the mathematical models are developed in detail and the proofs are supplied.

Financial Control of a Competitive Economy without Randomness

The monetary and fiscal control of a simple economy without outside randomness is studied here from the micro-economic basis of a strategic market game. The government's bureaucracy is treated as a public good that provides services at a cost. A conventional public good is also considered.Dynamic programming, Public goods, Bureaucracy, Taxation

Cost Innovation: Schumpeter and Equilibrium. Part 1. Robinson Crusoe

Modifying a parallel dynamic programming approach to a simple deterministic economy, we consider the effect of an innovation in the means of production. The success of the innovation is assumed to depend on the availability of financing, locus of financial control, the amount of resources invested, and on a random event. The relationship between money and physical assets is critical. In this first part stress is laid on the innovation behavior of Robinson Crusoe in a premonetary economy, then on his actions in a monetary economy in partial equilibrium. Part 2 considers the closed monetary economy with several differentiated agents

A Strategic Market Game with Active Bankruptcy

We construct stationary Markov equilibria for an economy with fiat money, one non-durable commodity, countably-many time periods, and a continuum of agents. The total production of commodity remains constant, but individual agents' endowments fluctuate in a random fashion, from period to period. In order to hedge against these random fluctuations, agents find it useful to hold fiat money which they can borrow or deposit at appropriate rates of interest; such activity may take place either at a central bank (which fixes interest rates judiciously) or through a money-market (in which interest rates are determined endogenously). We carry out an equilibrium analysis, based on a careful study of Dynamic Programming equations and on properties of the Invariant Measures for associated optimally-controlled Markov chains. This analysis yields the stationary distribution of wealth across agents, as well as the stationary price (for the commodity) and interest rates (for the borrowing and lending of fiat money). A distinctive feature of our analysis is the incorporation of bankruptcy, both as a real possibility in an individual agent's optimization problem, as well as a determinant of interest rates through appropriate balance equations. These allow a central bank (respectively, a money-market) to announce (respectively, to determine endogenously) interest rates in a way that conserves the total money-supply and controls inflation. General results are provided for the existence of such stationary equilibria, and several explicitly solvable examples are treated in detail.

Cost Innovation: Schumpeter and Equilibrium. Part 2: Innovation and the Money Supply

The control structure over money and real assets is considered in the process of cost innovation. The work here contrasts with the first part of this paper where the emphasis was on the physical aspects of innovation. Here the emphasis is primarily on the money supply aspects of innovation. We conclude with observations on evaluation and the locus of control in the process of innovation

Inflationary Equilibrium in a Stochastic Economy with Independent Agents

We argue that even when macroeconomic variables are constant, underlying microeconomic uncertainty and borrowing constraints generate inflation. We study stochastic economies with fiat money, a central bank, one nondurable commodity, countably many time periods, and a continuum of agents. The aggregate amount of the commodity remains constant, but the endowments of individual agents fluctuate "independently" in a random fashion from period to period. Agents hold money and, prior to bidding in the commodity market each period, can either borrow from or deposit in a central bank at a fixed rate of interest. If the interest rate is strictly positive, then typically there will not exist an equilibrium with a stationary wealth distribution and a fixed price for the commodity. Consequently, we investigate stationary equilibria with inflation, in which aggregate wealth and prices rise deterministically and at the same rate. Such an equilibrium does exist under appropriate bounds on the interest rate set by the central bank and on the amount of borrowing by the agents. If there is no uncertainty, or if the stationary strategies of the agents select actions in the interior of their action sets in equilibrium, then the classical Fisher equation for the rate of inflation continues to hold and the real rate of interest is equal to the common discount rate of the agents. However, with genuine uncertainty in the endowments and with convex marginal utilities, no interior equilibrium can exist. The equilibrium inflation must then be higher than that predicted by the Fisher equation, and the equilibrium real rate of interest underestimates the discount rate of the agents.Inflation, Economic equilibrium and dynamics, Dynamic programming, Consumption