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Recursive Collective Actions Problems: The Structure Of Procyclicality In Financial And Monetary Markets, Macroeconomies And Formally Similar Contexts, Robert C. Hockett
Recursive Collective Actions Problems: The Structure Of Procyclicality In Financial And Monetary Markets, Macroeconomies And Formally Similar Contexts, Robert C. Hockett
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
The hallmark of a collective action problem is its aggregating multiple individually rational decisions into a collectively irrational outcome. Arms races, “commons tragedies” and “prisoners’ dilemmas” are well-known, indeed well-worn examples. What seem to be less widely appreciated are two complementary propositions: first, that some collective action problems bear iterative, self-exacerbating structures that render them particularly destructive; and second, that some of the most formidable challenges faced by economies, societies, and polities are iteratively self-worsening problems of precisely this sort. Financial markets, monetary systems and macroeconomies in particular are rife with them – as are other complex systems subject to …
Bubbles, Busts, And Blame, Robert C. Hockett
Bubbles, Busts, And Blame, Robert C. Hockett
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
I argue that financial asset price bubbles and busts, such as those we have recently experienced in the mortgage and securities markets, are compatible with market efficiency, individual rationality, and even ethically unobjectionable behavior. The reason is that they constitute classic recursively self-amplifying collective action problems, the hallmark of which is the efficient aggregation of individually rational behaviors into collectively calamitous outcomes. In the present case, individuals rationally "legged the spread" between cheap borrowing costs and credit-fueled capital gains rates, neither of which market actors could affect in their individual capacities even when knowing that credit would have eventually to …
Irrational Expectations, Lynn A. Stout
Irrational Expectations, Lynn A. Stout
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Rational expectations models have become a staple of economic theory and the basis for a Nobel Prize. This article argues that rational expectations analysis suffers from potentially fatal flaws that seriously undermine its value in understanding many market phenomena. Using the example of financial markets, the article illustrates how the rational expectations approach has worked to obscure, rather than to illuminate, our understanding of speculation and speculative markets. This misguidance raises problems for law and policy.