We show that an intrinsic property of a large class of rational bubbles is their capacity to relax the agents’ debt limits. Any bubble that preserves the set of pricing kernels, or equivalently, the asset span, has effectively an identical effect on consumption and real interest rates as an...

Not-too-tight (NTT) debt limits are endogenous restrictions on debt that prevent agents from defaulting and opting for a specified continuation utility, while allowing for maximal credit expansion (Alvarez and Jermann, 2000). For an agent facing some fixed prices for the Arrow securities, we...

We present some complementary results to Bidian and Bejan (2012). Part 1 provides necessary and sufficient transversality conditions for an agent's optimization problem. They are extensions to stochastic environments of the conditions given by Kocherlakota (1992), or alternatively, extensions to...

Rational bubbles are believed to be fragile and unable to explain the trading frenzy associated to price run-ups. With limited enforcement of credit contracts and endogenous debt limits designed to prevent default and allow for maximal credit expansion, a large class of bubbles can be introduced...

We analyze the limit behavior of sequences of oligopolistic equilibria in which firms follow objectives consistent with their shareholders' interests. We show that the efficiency of the limit allocation depends on how firms' shares are distributed across consumers, and provide a characterization...

We analyze the limit behavior of sequences of oligopolistic equilibria in which firms follow objectives consistent with their shareholders’ interests. We show that convergence to a competitive outcome may fail for some distributions of firms’ shares across consumers and provide a...