Does the Pareto criterion discriminate among policy choices when the policymaker does not know the correct model of the economy? If the policymaker can specify ex ante preferences for each agent, there will typically be some policy change that improves the welfare of each agent relative to a...

Introducing default and limited collateral into general equilibrium allows for a theoery of endogenous contracts, ..

In spite of fiat money is useless in a standard Arrow-Debreu model, in this paper we will show that this does not hold true anymore when goods are indivisible. In our setting, although fiat money yields no utility, its price will always be positive and the set of equilibrium allocations changes...

When people share risk in financial markets, intermediaries provide costly enforcement for most trades and, hence, are an integral part of financial markets' organization. We assess the degree of risk sharing that can be achieved through financial markets when enforcement is based on the threat...

In this paper, the issue of strategic behavior in the presence of environmental regulations and international trade is investigated. In a two-country, one-good, two-producer model as in Ulph (1996), we analyze the Nash equilibrium of the game where governments may behave strategically in...

Money managers are rewarded for increasing the value of assets under management, and predominantly so in the mutual fund industry. This gives the manager an implicit incentive to exploit the well-documented positive fund-flows to relative-performance relationship by manipulating her risk...

This paper examines the welfare of consumers in an incomplete markets economy with extrinsic uncertainty. It is shown that the utility of one consumer may be minimized at the Walrasian allocation relative to all other equilibrium allocations for a given security structure. Thus, this consumer...

We study the impact on asset prices of illiquidity associated with search and bargaining in an economy in which agents can trade only when they find each other. Marketmakers' prices are higher and bid-ask spreads are lower if investors can find each other more easily. Prices become Walrasian as...

We study the impact on asset prices of illiquidity associated with search and bargaining in an economy in which agents can trade only when they find each other. Marketmakers' prices are higher and bid-ask spreads are lower if investors can find each other more easily. Prices become Walrasian as...

This paper models individual choices of social groups and the formation of group identity, and examines the conditions with which the group identity reinforces the productivity of individuals. A social group is defined as a network that provides with a market for interactions to its members....