Multiple Equilibria in Noisy Rational Expectations Economies

Abstract

This paper studies equilibrium uniqueness in standard noisy rational expectations economies with asymmetric or differential information a la Grossman and Stiglitz (1980) and Hellwig (1980). We show that the standard linear equilibrium of Grossman and Stiglitz (1980) is the unique equilibrium with a continuous price function. However, we also construct a tractable class of equilibria with discontinuous prices that have very different economic implications, including (i) jumps and crashes, (ii) significant revisions in uninformed belief due to small changes in the market price, (iii) "upward-sloping" demand curves, (iv) higher prices leading to future returns that are higher in expectation (price drift) and (v) more positively skewed. Discontinuous equilibria can be arbitrarily close to being fully-revealing. Finally, discontinuous equilibria with the same construction also exist in Hellwig (1980).