We propose a criterion for determining whether a local policy analysis can be made in a given equilibrium in an overlapping generations model. The criterion can be applied to models with infinite past and future as well as those with a truncated past. The equilibrium is not necessarily a steady...

Information dissemination and aggregation are key economic functions of financial markets. How intelligent do traders have to be for the complex task of aggregating diverse information (i.e., approximate the predictions of the rational expectations equilibrium) in a competitive double auction...

We show that in almost every economy with separable externalities, every competitive equilibrium can be Pareto improved by a package of anonymous commodity taxes that causes prices to adjust and markets to reclear at different levels of individual consumption. This constrained suboptimality of...

We show that in almost every economy with separable externalities, every competitive equilibrium can be Pareto improved by a package of anonymous commodity taxes that cause prices to adjust and markets to reclear at different levels of individual consumption. The argument can be extended to...

Attainment of rational expectations equilibria in asset markets calls for the price system to disseminate agents' private information to others. Markets populated by human agents are known to be capable of converging to rational expectations equilibria. This paper reports comparable market...

Conjugate duality relationships are pervasive in matching and implementation problems and provide much of the structure essential for characterizing stable matches and implementable allocations in models with quasilinear (or transferable) utility. In the absence of quasilinearity, a more...

We use the theory of abstract convexity to study adverse-selection principal-agent problems and two-sided matching problems, departing from much of the literature by not requiring quasilinear utility. We formulate and characterize a basic underlying implementation duality. We show how this...

This essay is the third of three. The first is nontechnical and in part autobiograhpical describing the evolution of my approach to developing a microeconomic theory of money and financial institutions. The second essay was devoted to a more formal sketch of a closed economic exchange system...

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...

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...