We study the competitive equilibrium of a market for votes where voters can trade votes for a numeraire before making a decision via majority rule. The choice is binary and the number of supporters of either alternative is known. We identify a sufficient condition guaranteeing the existence of...

Recent mainstream monetary policy analysis focuses on rational expectation solutions that are uniquely stable. A number of recent studies have examined the question of whether typical New Keynesian (NK) models, with policy rules that satisfy the Taylor principle, also exhibit solutions with...

Linear RE models typically possess a multiplicity of solutions. Consider, however, the requirement that the solution coefficients must not be infinitely discontinuous in the model's structural parameters. In particular, we require that the solutions should be continuous in the limit as those...

This paper proposes forward convergence as a model refinement scheme for linear rational expectations (LRE) models and an associated no-bubble condition as a solution selection criterion. We relate these two concepts to determinacy and characterize the complete set of economically relevant...

While the focus of mainstream economic analysis of liability rules remains on negligence liability, recently some legal scholars have argued for the sharing of liability. In this paper, our first objective is contribute to the debate regarding the desirability of the sharing of liability for the...

This paper develops a model with multiple steady states (low tax and low unemployment versus high tax and high unemployment) in which equilibrium selection is not conditioned on a sunspot variable. Instead, large temporary shocks initiate unavoidable transitions from one steady state to another....

Farmer, Waggoner, and Zha (2009) show that a new Keynesian model with a regime-switching monetary policy rule can support multiple solutions that depend only on the fundamental shocks in the model. Their note appears to find solutions in regions of the parameter space where there should be no...

We study the efficiency of oligopoly equilibria in congested markets. The motivating examples are the allocation of network flows in a communication network or of traffic in a transportation network. We show that increasing competition among oligopolists can reduce efficiency, measured as the...

Consider a rational expectations (RE) model that includes a relationship between variables x_t and z_t+1. To be considered structural and potentially useful as a guide to actual behavior, this model must specify whether x_t is influenced by the expectation at t of z_t+1 or, alternatively, that z_t+1...

It is argued that learnability/E-stability is a necessary condition for a RE solution to be plausible. A class of linear models considered by Evans and Honkapohja (2001) is shown to include all models of the form used by King and Watson (1998) and Klein (2000), which permits any number of lags,...