Short-memory equilibrium in stochastic overlapping generations economies

Abstract

In stochastic OLG exchange economies, we show that short-memory equilibria—the natural extension from deterministic economies of steady states, low-order cycles, or finite state-space stationary sunspots equilibria—fail to exist generically in utilities. As a result, even with independent and identically distributed exogenous shocks there is serial correlation in endogenous economic variables in equilibrium. This arises even if utilities are time-separable, some goods inferior, and there are no technological lags. Hence, the origins of economic fluctuations can be traced only to the demographic structure of a heterogeneous agent, multiple-good economy.