The paper presents a general equilibrium model of a pure exchange economy with stochastic endowment in which speculation is profitable and stabilizes prices, but is useless from a welfare point of view. Reconciling the Siegel paradox with the theory of incomplete markets we show that banning...

This paper investigates the dynamic behavior of an economy with multiple Nash equilibria. The first part of the paper analyzes an abstract game exhibiting multiple equilibria. A history dependent selection criterion is proposed which induces correlated behavior in equilibrium even though agents...

Rich behavioral biases, mistakes and limits on rational decision-making are often thought to make equilibrium analysis much more intractable. We show that this is not the case in the context of the neoclassical growth model (potentially incorporating incomplete markets and distortions). We break...

A central authority possessing tax and expenditure responsibilities can readily provide an efficient level of a public good. Absent a central authority, voluntary arrangements must replace coercive ones. Significant under-provision must be expected. International public goods are particularly...

We quantify a class of commonly-employed general equilibrium models of international trade and pricing-to-market that feature firm-level heterogeneity and consumers with nonhomothetic preferences. We demonstrate theoretically that the models lack the flexibility to match salient features of US...

This paper extends the methodology developed in Chien, Cole and Lustig (2011 & 2012) (hereafter CCL2011 and CCL2012, respectively) to analyze and compute the equilibria of economies with heterogeneous agents who have different asset trading technologies and are subject to both aggregate and...

This paper reports results from a laboratory experiment that investigates the Meltzer-Richard model of equilibrium tax rates, inequality, and income redistribution. We also extend that model to incorporate social preferences in the form of altruism and inequality aversion. The experiment varies...

The apparently unrelenting growth in the GDP-share of health spending (SHS) has been a perennial issue of policy concern. Does an equilibrium limit exist? The issue has been left open in recent dynamic models which take income growth and population aging as given. We view these variables as...

We develop a dynamic nonlinear, noisy REE model of credit risk pricing under dispersed information that can theoretically and quantitatively account for the credit spread puzzle. The first contribution is a sharp analytical characterization of the dynamic REE equilibrium and its comparative...

Europe's debt crisis resembles historical episodes of outright default on domestic public debt about which little research exists. This paper proposes a theory of domestic sovereign default based on distributional incentives affecting the welfare of risk-averse debt- and non-debt holders. A...