Equilibrium Concepts in the Large Household Model

Abstract

This paper formulates two alternative equilibrium concepts in the large household model: one which allows individual household agents to make choices in their separate meetings, and the other which commits individual household agents to contingent actions prior to their meetings. In the first formulation, large converts a model with nonlinear preferences for the household into one with quasi-linear preferences for the individual household's agents, which is critical to make degeneracy--all households experience the same distribution of meeting outcomes--as an equilibrium; in the second formulation, commitment instead of large is the critical factor.