Efficiency and prices in economies of overlapping generations

Abstract

In a general economy of overlapping generations, I introduce a notion of uniform ine±ciency, corresponding to the occurrence of a Pareto improvement with a small uniform destruction of resources (Debreu [11]). I provide necessary and su±cient conditions for uniform ine±ciency in terms of competitive equilibrium prices. Minimal assumptions are needed for such a complete characterization; moreover, proofs reduce to simple and short direct arguments. Finally, I verify that uniform ine±ciency is preserved under perturbations of the endowments, a property that has not been established for the canonical notion of ine±ciency. Remarkably, an allocation is unifoOverlapping generations; e±ciency; competitive prices; Cass Criterion; social security