Stochastic optimal growth with a non-compact state space

Abstract

This paper studies the stability of a stochastic optimal growth economy introduced by Brock and Mirman [Brock, W.A., Mirman, L., 1972. Optimal economic growth and uncertainty: the discounted case. Journal of Economic Theory 4, 479–513] by utilizing stochastic monotonicity in a dynamic system. The construction of two boundary distributions leads to a new method of studying systems with non-compact state space. The paper shows the existence of a unique invariant distribution. It also shows the equivalence between the stability and the uniqueness of the invariant distribution in this dynamic system.