For a general class of pure exchange OLG economies under uncertainty, we provide a complete characterization of the efficency properties of competitive equilibria when markets are only sequentially complete and the criterion of efficency is conditional Pareto optimality. We also consider a...

Standard models of intertemporal allocation predict that the time path of expenditures should beindependent of the time path of income. Recently two papers, Parker (1999) and Souleles (1999)have suggested that U.S. households have a high marginal propensity to spend within yearanticipated income...

Fighting poverty is one of the main goals in the most societies. This is usually done by the transferring resources to the poor. There exists a widespread view that the European countries are more generous to the poor than the United States. We study whether this is really the case. Firts we...

Consider a pure exchange OLG economy under stationary Markov uncertainty with one good and with sequentially complete markets. It is known that an interior stationary equilibrium allocation at which the agents common matrix of intertemporal rates of substitution has a Perron root which is less...

This paper attempts to detect the existence of links in consumptionpreferences between generations. Preferences for consumption goods may bedetermined by the preferences of parents (vertical transmission) and/or bypreferences arising from the environment (horizontal transmission). Wepropose an...

This paper examines the empirical relevance of an intertemporal model of consumption with dynamically inconsistent decision makers. The model has testable implications concerning the relation between the consumers' degrees of short-run patience (self-control) and their consumption-saving...

We consider general OLG economies under uncertainty, with dividend paying assets of infinite maturity and money, and in which one good is available for consumption. We study the optimality properties of equilibria when asset markets are allowed to be sequentially incomplete. We show that if...

We consider pure exchange, one good OLG economies under stationary Markov uncertainty. It is known that when markets are sequentially complete, a stationary equilibrium at which the agents common matrix of intertemporal rates of substitution has a Perron root which is less than or equal to one...

We consider an infinite horizon economy with incomplete markets with two agents and one good. We begin with an example in which an agent's equilibrium consumption is zero eventually with probability one even if she has correct beliefs and is marginally more patient. We then prove the following...

Consider a one step forward looking model where agents believe that the equilibrium values of the state variable are determined by a function whose domain is the current value of the state variable and whose range is the value for the subsequent period. An agent's forecast for the subsequent...