Age structured populations are studied in economics through overlapping generations models. These models allow for a realistic characterization of life-cycle behaviors and display intertemporal equilibrium that are not necessarily efficient. This article uses the latest developments in...

In this paper we develop a multiple equilibria one-sector R&D-based growth model, in which the key aspects are the assumption of complementarities between capital goods in the production function and the assumption of costly investment in capital. This second assumption is new to the R&D-based...

This paper explores instances of coordination failures in intertemporal decisions. The context is one where agents try to interpret the behavior of others as it is revealed by market variables. The paper shows examples where, if agents postulate that market data necessarily result from actions...

The OLG model of Allais and Samuelson retains the methodological assumptions of agent optimization and market clearing from the Arrow-Debreu model, yet its equilibrium set has different properties: Pareto inefficiency, indeterminacy, positive valuation of money, and a golden rule equilibrium in...

Evolutionary arguments are often used to justify the fundamental behavioral postulates of competive equilibrium. Economists such as Milton Friedman have argued that natural selection favors profit maximizing firms over firms engaging in other behaviors. Consequently, producer efficiency, and...

This paper investigates the transmission mechanisms of noise and volatility between economies through trade links, and the effects of synchronization on business cycles. We investigate the transmission of outside noise and the fluctuations that the noise generates. We identify conditions under...

We introduce a neoclassical growth economy with idiosyncratic production risk and incomplete markets. Each agent is an entrepreneur operating her own neoclassical technology with her own capital stock. The general equilibrium is characterized in closed form. Idiosyncratic production shocks...

This paper investigates the efficiency of household investment decisions in a unique dataset containing the disaggregated wealth and income of the entire population of Sweden. The analysis focuses on two main sources of inefficiency in the financial portfolio: underdiversification of risky...

This paper discusses a two-sector neoclassical overlapping generations economy with intermediate and final goods in the spirit of Romer (1990). The risk averse agents engage in one of two alternative occu pations: either firrm-ownership in the intermediate goods sector, char acterized by...

This paper is concerned with occupational choice under risk, where agents care about their social status. It is motivated by recent developments in the 'New Economy', which indicate that status preferences possibly provide an explanation for the observed shift towards entrepreneurial...