Inverse limits and statistical properties for chaotic implicitly defined economic models

Abstract

In this paper, we study the dynamics and ergodic theory of certain economic models which are implicitly defined. We consider 1-dimensional and 2-dimensional overlapping generations models, a cash-in-advance model, heterogeneous markets and a cobweb model with adaptive adjustment. We consider the inverse limit spaces of certain chaotic invariant fractal sets and their metric, ergodic and stability properties. The inverse limits give the set of intertemporal perfect foresight equilibria for the economic problem considered. First we show that the inverse limits of these models are stable under perturbations. We then employ utility functions on inverse limits in our case. We give two ways to rank such utility functions. First, when perturbing certain dynamical systems, we rank utility functions in terms of their average values with respect to invariant probability measures on inverse limits, especially with respect to measures of maximal entropy. For families of certain unimodal maps we can adjust both the discount factor and the system parameters in order to obtain maximal average value of the utility. The second way to rank utility functions (for more general maps on hyperbolic sets) will be to use equilibrium measures of these utility functions on inverse limits; they optimize average values of utility functions while at the same time keeping the disorder in the system as low as possible in the long run.