Determinacy of Equilibrium in an Overlapping Generations Model with Heterogeneous Agents

Abstract

We study the determinacy of perfect foresight equilibrium near a steady state in an overlapping generations model with production and both altruistic and non-altruistic agents having distinct utility functions. The proportion of each type of consumer is exogenously given. Our main results show that when there are positive stationary bequests, some standard assumptions on preferences and technology rule out local indeterminacy for any positive value of the proportions. In the particular case of a separable utility function for altruistic agents, we prove that the determinacy property does not depend on the size of the “infinite lived” altruistic dynasties. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C62, D91, O21, O41.