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Full-Text Articles in Economics
What Is Socialism Today? Conceptions Of A Cooperative Economy, John E. Roemer
What Is Socialism Today? Conceptions Of A Cooperative Economy, John E. Roemer
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Socialism is back on the political agenda in the United States. Politicians and some economists who identify as socialists, however, do not discuss property relations, a topic that was central in the intellectual history of socialism, but rather limit themselves to advocacy of economic reforms, funded through taxation, that would tilt the income distribution in favor of the disadvantaged in society. In the absence of a more precise discussion of property relations, the presumption must be that ownership of firms would remain private or corporate with privately owned shares. This formula is identified with the Nordic and other western European …
Embedding Cooperation In General-Equilibrium Models, John E. Roemer
Embedding Cooperation In General-Equilibrium Models, John E. Roemer
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Humans cooperate a great deal in economic activity, but our two major models of equilibrium – Walrasian competitive in markets and Nash in games – portray us as only non-cooperative. In earlier work, I have proposed a model of cooperative decision making (Kantian optimization); here, I embed Kantian optimization in general equilibrium models and show that ‘Walras-Kant’ equilibria exist and often resolve inefficiencies associated with income taxation, public goods and bads, and non-traditional firm ownership, which typically plague models where agents are Nash optimizers. In four examples, introducing Kantian optimization in one market – often the labor market – suffices …
Default, Efficiency And Uniqueness, Cheng-Zhong Qin, Thomas Quint, Martin Shubik
Default, Efficiency And Uniqueness, Cheng-Zhong Qin, Thomas Quint, Martin Shubik
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
An adequate description of economic dynamics requires the introduction of a monetary system including default penalties and expectations in a society whose economy utilizes money and credit. This essay notes and discusses several of the factors involved in the use of money and credit in a process oriented economy. It links these observations with the general equilibrium treatment of the same underlying economy and formulates a government guidance game where the government sets several key parameters in a monetary economy sufficient to select a unique equilibrium. Low information and error correction are noted. The links to the first and second …
A Design For Market Socialism, John E. Roemer
A Design For Market Socialism, John E. Roemer
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Socialism is conceptualized as a society in which individuals cooperate, distinguished from capitalism, characterized as involving ubiquitous economic competition. Here, I embed a formal model of cooperation in an Arrow-Debreu model, using the Kantian optimization protocol, and define a Walras-Kant equilibrium, in which firms maximize profits, consumers choose demands for commodities in the usual utilitymaximizing fashion, and the state rents capital to firms. The labor-supply decision of workers, however, is arrived at using the cooperative protocol. Incomes are redistributed through a flat income tax. Walras-Kant equilibria, with any desired degree of income equality exist, are decentralizable, and are Pareto efficient.
Sufficiency Of An Outside Bank And A Default Penalty To Support The Value Of Fiat Money: Experimental Evidence, Juergen Huber, Martin Shubik, Shyam Sunder
Sufficiency Of An Outside Bank And A Default Penalty To Support The Value Of Fiat Money: Experimental Evidence, Juergen Huber, Martin Shubik, Shyam Sunder
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We present a model in which an outside bank and a default penalty support the value of fiat money, and experimental evidence that the theoretical predictions about the behavior of such economies, based on the Fisher-condition, work reasonably well in a laboratory setting. The import of this finding for the theory of money is to show that the presence of a societal bank and default laws provide sufficient structure to support the use of fiat money and use of the bank rate to influence inflation or deflation, although other institutions could provide alternatives.
Sufficiency Of An Outside Bank And A Default Penalty To Support The Value Of Fiat Money: Experimental Evidence, Juergen Huber, Martin Shubik, Shyam Sunder
Sufficiency Of An Outside Bank And A Default Penalty To Support The Value Of Fiat Money: Experimental Evidence, Juergen Huber, Martin Shubik, Shyam Sunder
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We present a model in which an outside bank and a default penalty support the value of fiat money, and experimental evidence that the theoretical predictions about the behavior of such economies, based on the Fisher-condition, work reasonably well in a laboratory setting. The import of this finding for the theory of money is to show that the presence of a societal bank and default laws provide sufficient structure to support the use of fiat money and use of the bank rate to influence inflation or deflation, although other institutions could provide alternatives.
Three Minimal Market Institutions With Human And Algorithmic Agents: Theory And Experimental Evidence, Juergen Huber, Martin Shubik, Shyam Sunder
Three Minimal Market Institutions With Human And Algorithmic Agents: Theory And Experimental Evidence, Juergen Huber, Martin Shubik, Shyam Sunder
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We define and examine the performance of three minimal strategic market games (sell-all, buy-sell, and double auction) in laboratory relative to the predictions of theory. Unlike open or partial equilibrium settings of most other experiments, these closed exchange economies have limited amounts of cash to facilitate transactions and include feedback. General equilibrium theory, since it abstracts away from market mechanisms and has no role for money or credit, makes no predictions about how the paths of convergence to the competitive equilibrium may differ across alternative mechanisms. Introduction of markets and money as carriers of process creates the possibility of motion. …
Three Minimal Market Institutions With Human And Algorithmic Agents: Theory And Experimental Evidence, Juergen Huber, Martin Shubik, Shyam Sunder
Three Minimal Market Institutions With Human And Algorithmic Agents: Theory And Experimental Evidence, Juergen Huber, Martin Shubik, Shyam Sunder
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We define and examine three minimal market games (sell-all, buy-sell, and double auction) in the laboratory relative to the predictions of theory. These closed exchange economies have some cash to facilitate transactions, and include feedback. The experiment reveals that (1) the competitive general equilibrium (CGE) and non-cooperative (NCE) models are reasonable anchors to locate most but not all the observed outcomes of the three market mechanisms; (2) outcomes tend to get closer to CGE predictions as the number of players increases; (3) prices and allocations in double auctions deviate persistently from CGE predictions; (4) the outcome paths across the three …
Liquidity, Default And Crashes: Endogenous Contracts In General Equilibrium, John Geanakoplos
Liquidity, Default And Crashes: Endogenous Contracts In General Equilibrium, John Geanakoplos
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
The possibility of default limits available liquidity. If the potential default draws nearer, a liquidity crisis may ensue, causing a crash in asset prices, even if the probability of default barely changes, and even if no defaults subsequently materialize. Introducing default and limited collateral into general equilibrium theory (GE) allows for a theory of endogenous contracts, including endogenous margin requirements on loans. This in turn allows GE to explain liquidity and liquidity crises in equilibrium. A formal definition of liquidity is presented. When new information raises the probability and shortens the horizon over which a fixed income asset may default, …
Liquidity, Default And Crashes: Endogenous Contracts In General Equilibrium, John Geanakoplos
Liquidity, Default And Crashes: Endogenous Contracts In General Equilibrium, John Geanakoplos
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Introducing default and limited collateral into general equilibrium theory (GE) allows for a theory of endogenous contracts, including endogenous margin requirements on loans. This in turn allows GE to explain liquidity and liquidity crises in equilibrium. A formal definition of liquidity is presented. When new information raises the probability a fixed income asset may default, its drop in price may be much greater than its objective drop in value because the drop in value reduces the relative wealth of its natural buyers, who disproportiantely own the asset through leveraged purchases. When the information also shortens the horizon over which the …
Liquidity, Default And Crashes: Endogenous Contracts In General Equilibrium, John Geanakoplos
Liquidity, Default And Crashes: Endogenous Contracts In General Equilibrium, John Geanakoplos
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Introducing default and limited collateral into general equilibrium theory (GE) allows for a theory of endogenous contracts, including endogenous margin requirements on loans. This in turn allows GE to explain liquidity and liquidity crises in equilibrium. A formal definition of liquidity is presented. When new information raises the probability a fixed income asset may default, its drop in price may be much greater than its objective drop in value because the drop in value reduces the relative wealth of its natural buyers, who disproportiantely own the asset through leveraged purchases. When the information also shortens the horizon over which the …
If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?Belief Selection In Complete And Incomplete Markets, Larry Blume, David Easley
If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?Belief Selection In Complete And Incomplete Markets, Larry Blume, David Easley
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
This paper provides an analysis of the asymptotic properties of consumption allocations in a stochastic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous consumers. In particular we investigate the market selection hypothesis, that markets favor traders with more accurate beliefs. We show that in any Pareto optimal allocation whether each consumer vanishes or survives is determined entirely by discount factors and beliefs. Since equilibrium allocations in economies with complete markets are Pareto optimal, our results characterize the limit behavior of these economies. We show that, all else equal, the market selects for consumers who use Bayesian learning with the truth in the support …
How To Compute Equilibrium Prices In 1891, William C. Brainard, Herbert E. Scarf
How To Compute Equilibrium Prices In 1891, William C. Brainard, Herbert E. Scarf
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Irving Fisher’s Ph.D. thesis, submitted to Yale University in 1891, contains a fully articulated general equilibrium model presented with the broad scope and formal mathematical clarity associated with Walras and his successors. In addition, Fisher presents a remarkable hydraulic apparatus for calculating equilibrium prices and the resulting distribution of society’s endowments among the agents in the economy. In this paper we provide an analytical description of Fisher’s apparatus, and report the results of simulating the mechanical/hydraulic “machine,” illustrating the ability of the apparatus to “compute” equilibrium prices and also to find multiple equilibria.
Commentary On Irving Fisher, James Tobin
Commentary On Irving Fisher, James Tobin
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Schumpeter regarded “The Nature of Capital and Income” as one of the three of Fisher’s contributions to general theory generally recognized, at the time Schumpeter was writing, as “of first-class importance and originality.” The other two were Fisher’s “Mathematical Investigations” (1982) and his statistical method for measuring the marginal utility of income (1972). Nature is the bridge, both in sequence and in logic, between the other two great works, the timeless general equilibrium theory of the 1892 dissertation and the extension of that theory to intertemporal choices in production and consumption in the theory of interest.
Economic Equilibrium And Soviet Economic Reform, Herbert E. Scarf
Economic Equilibrium And Soviet Economic Reform, Herbert E. Scarf
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
The paper, prepared for a Roundtable on Major Economic Problems in the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., discusses some aspects of price theory — in particular, the theory of general equilibrium — which may offer some theoretical insights about the economic problems to be encountered during the transition from Socialism to private markets in the Soviet Union.
Liquidity And Bankruptcy With Incomplete Markets: Pure Exchange, Pradeep Dubey, John Geanakoplos
Liquidity And Bankruptcy With Incomplete Markets: Pure Exchange, Pradeep Dubey, John Geanakoplos
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
We enlarge the standard model of general equilibrium with incomplete market (GEI), to incorporate liquidity constraints as well as the possibility of bankruptcy and default. A new equilibrium results, which we abbreviate GELBI (general equilibrium with liquidity, bankruptcy and incomplete markets). When the supply of bank money and bankruptcy/default penalties are taken sufficiently high (the high regime), GEI occur as GELBI. But outside the high regime many new phenomena appear: money is (almost) never neutral, it has positive value and its optimum quantity is often finite; bankruptcy and default not only occur in equilibrium but can have welfare improving consequences …
A Modeling System For Applied General Equilibrium Analysis, Thomas Rutherford
A Modeling System For Applied General Equilibrium Analysis, Thomas Rutherford
Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers
Numerical modeling in the Arrow-Debreu framework has emerged as a consistent approach for economic analysis. A major disadvantage of the applied general equilibrium (AGE) framework has been the high degree of technical expertise required for formulating and solving these models. This paper describes a micro-computer for AGE modeling. The system, named MPS/GE, combines an efficient solution algorithm with an interactive user-interface. Using MPS/GE, models containing up to 300 prices and activities can be formulated and solved on an IBM PC. This makes AGE modeling accessible to a wider group of policy analysts and educators than was previously the case.