Modern macroeconomic theory utilises optimal control techniques to model the maximisation of individual well-being using a lifetime utility function. Agents face choices over current and future consumption (with resultant implied savings decisions) seeking to maximise the present value of...

The purpose of this paper is to understand the effects of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution (EIS) and risk aversion on savings separately and determine which coefficient is more important factor for precautionary savings. This is an important question since a significant fraction of...

Latin America has had striking changes in economic performance over time. Following the recession and debt crises of the early 1980’s, consumption declined for about ten years and consumption per-capita in the year 2004 was roughly the same as it was in 1980. This paper studies consumption...

We consider infinite horizon economies populated by a continuum of agents who are subject to idiosyncratic shocks. This framework contains models of saving and capital accumulation with incomplete markets in the spirit of works by Bewley, Aiyagari, and Huggett, and models of entry, exit and...

In this paper we examine the effects of two types of “induced uncertainty”, model uncertainty due to robustness (RB) and state uncertainty due to finite information–processing capacity (called rational inattention or RI), on consumption and the current account. We show that the combination...

This note extends the finding of Benhabib and Rusticchini (1994) who provide a class of SDGE models, whose solution is characterized by a constant savings rate. We show that this class of models may be interpreted as a standard representative agent SDGE model with costly adjustment of capital...

We study a small open economy displaying Pareto-distributed wealth resulting from random death. The government runs a distribution scheme on inheritance. We present the mathematical background that allows to study the dynamics of means. We end up with ordinary differential equations for the mean...