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Econometrica Vol. 70 No. 5 2002

Does Market Incompleteness Matter?

David K. Levine; William R. Zame

University of California, Los Angeles

Abstract

This paper argues that incompleteness of intertemporal financial markets has little effect (on welfare, prices, or consumption) in an economy with a single consumption good, provided that traders are long–lived and patient, a riskless bond is traded, shocks are transitory, and there is no aggregate risk. In an economy with aggregate risk, a similar conclusion holds, provided traders share the same CRRA utility function and the right assets are traded. Examples demonstrate that these conclusions need not hold if the wrong assets are traded or if the economy has multiple consumption goods.

DOI
10.1111/1468-0262.00354
Volume
70
Issue
5
Pages
1805-1839
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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