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The political economy of overlapping generations
The formation and maintenance of the institutions of money and a futures market are analyzed in an overlapping generations model with a first period. With money and a futures market the economy converges to the allocation where costly transactions are foregone and marginal products and marginal utilities equated. However, neither institution may be formed, or money may be formed without a futures market. Moreover, stochastic output technologies raise the possibility of persistent recession and depression and of valuable government insurance of the futures market.
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Shocks, learning, and persistence
A simple model of the process of learning in a diverse economy is presented. This model produces a stylized business cycle with shocks which precipitate the learning process. All agents have the same information, which implies that this business cycle cannot be reduced by improved information flow, counter to many models of output and employment fluctuation.
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Costly information and the stock market
In a simple, coherent, general equilibrium model it is demonstrated why stock market prices do not reflect costly but socially useless information.
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A generalized equilibrium solution for game theory
Iterated contraction by dominance produces a generalized equilibrium. This solution to game theory is motivated, generated, analyzed, and compared to Nash equilibrium. One implication drawn is that a realized event in a social situation need not be uniquely determined by simple individual choices, even though the preference orderings implying those choices are the appropriate primitive.
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A general method of solution for game theory and its relevance for economic theorizing
According to the folklore of economics, game theory has failed. This paper argues that that is an incorrect interpretation of the game theory literature. When faced with a well-posed problem, game theory provides a solution. When faced with an ill-posed problem, game theory fails to provide a solution. This is, indeed, the best one can hope for from a method of analysis! Further, some suggestions are made for facing game theory with well-posed economic problems.
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A price discrimination analysis of monetary policy
Monetary policy is analyzed within a model that ignores transaction costs and appeals solely to legal restrictions on private intermediation to explain the coexistence of currency and interest-bearing default-free bonds. The interaction between such legal restrictions and monetary policy is illustrated in versions of overlapping generations models that contain three assets: government-issued currency and bonds and real capital. It is shown that legal restrictions and the use of both currency and bonds permit the government to levy a discriminatory inflation tax and that such a tax may be ...
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Bank collapse and depression
The recurrent banking panics of the 19th century and the Great Depression of the 1930s are widely viewed as failures of our economic system. A simple version of Samuelson?s overlapping generations model is used to generate such failures of Walrasian equilibrium. The spontaneous ?panics? generated involve a collapse of bank credit, causing in turn a drop in investment demand. The model suggests that both the recent technological advances in the intermediation industry and the current move towards deregulation of that industry are ominous developments.