An intertemporal model of consumption and bequest behaviour is specified and analysed as a game between generations. The main feature of this game is that no a priori restrictions (like linearity) are placed on the strategy choice of generations. The paper gives an existence proof for perfect (Nash) equilibria in finite and infinite horizon versions of the model and determines characteristic properties of equilibrium strategies. The main result is to demonstrate existence of stationary perfect equilibrium if the time horizon is infinite.
Partha Dasgupta, Eric Maskin; The Existence of Equilibrium in Discontinuous Economic Games, II: Applications, The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 53, Is
The paper analyses an M3 demand for money equation for the United Kingdom. Attention is paid to the policy change that occurred in 1971 with the introduction of the measure known as Competition and Credit Control. Classical and Bayesian single equation instrumental variables procedures are developed to investigate the exogeneity of the short-term interest rate and the constancy of the parameters of the underlying relationships. The parameters of the short-term equation have changed as well as the exogeneity status of the interest rate variable but the parameters of the long-term equation appear to be less affected by the policy change.
For a principal with many agents, rank-order contracts remain incentive compatible even when information about agents' performance is known only to the principal because the total payment from the principal to all agents taken together is independent of the outcome that occurs. Under wider conditions than those considered previously in the literature, there is shown to exist a rank-order contract equivalent, exactly or approximately, to any (nonlinear) piece-rate contract. Under those conditions, therefore, results that depend on the unenforceability of piece rates under such asymmetric information disappear if rank-order contracts can be used.
Processing domestically available materials for export has intuitive appeal, e.g. if transport costs are reduced. Uncertainty in the supply of the raw material can be a crucial factor. The theoretical model of this paper shows how to choose the optimal processing capacity and, relatedly, the optimal price to pay producers of the input. Issues include: decision makers' preferences; sources and nature of uncertainty; availability of inputs to produce the raw material; and technology and costs of processing. Econometric estimates of the climate-yield relation are used to simulate these decisions for the case of Senegalese groundnut processing.
Linear rational expectations models with expectations of future endogenous variables have multiple equilibria. For a scalar model with k forward expectational lags and l backward lags, this paper characterizes the complete set of ARMA solutions. It is shown that the maximum degree solutions are ARMA (k + l, k), that the solutions of maximum degree are obtained directly from the characteristic polynomial but have arbitrary MA parameters, and that all lower degree ARMA solutions are obtained by deleting common factors in the AR and MA lag polynomials. The results are applied to several macroeconomic examples.
This paper critically examines the hypothesis that layoffs are involuntary in implicit labour contracts because they are used by employers to punish inferior worker performance. In repeated moral hazard situations, workers typically bear risk associated with whether they are chosen to be laid off even though the latter is uninformative about previous effort choices and wages are performance-contingent. However the hypothesis is unsatisfactory as optimal contracts involve involuntary retentions rather than involuntary layoffs in a wide variety of circumstances.
Macro-economic models are generally designed to achieve a multiplicity of objectives and correspondingly, they have been evaluated using a vast range of statistical, econometric, economic, political and even aesthetic criteria. However, in so far as they claim to represent economic behaviour, empirical macro-economic systems are certainly open to direct evaluation and testing against data information. The last few years have witnessed a substantial growth in the literature on econometric evaluation techniques, but despite important improvements in formalising evaluation procedures and their increased scope, formidable problems confront any investigation of a high dimensional, non-linear, stochastic, dynamic structure. Since system characteristics are the prime concern of economy-wide models, it might be the case that the validity of every individual component is not essential to adequate overall performance. While this viewpoint is debatable it does draw attention to the need for system evaluation procedures, at which point data limitations pose serious constraints on formal tests. Thus a new "limited information" test of forecast encompassing is proposed, based only on forecasts and requiring no other data from a model's proprietors. The derivation, merits and drawbacks of such a test are presented together with some suggestions for testing entailed relationships and inter-equation feedbacks.
The central proposition of disappointment theory is that an individual forms expectations about uncertain prospects, and that if the actual consequence turns out to be worse than (or better than) that expectation, the individual experiences a sensation of disappointment (or elation) generating a decrement (or increment) of utility which modifies the basic utility derived from the consequence. By incorporating a simple disappointment-elation function into a model of individual choice, many observed violations of conventional expected utility axioms—including violations of Savage's sure-thing principle and the “isolation effect”—can be predicted and defended as rational and dynamically consistent behaviour.