Overlapping Generations Economy Research Articles

ENDOGENOUS BUSINESS CYCLES IN OVERLAPPING-GENERATIONS ECONOMIES WITH MULTIPLE CONSUMPTION GOODS

We consider an overlapping-generations economy with two consumption goods. There are two sectors that produce a pure consumption good and a mixed good that can be either consumed or used as capital. We prove that the existence of Pareto-optimal expectations-driven fluctuations is compatible with standard sectoral technologies if the share of the pure consumption good is low enough. Following Reichlin's [Journal of Economic Theory 40 (1986), 89–102] influential conclusion, this result suggests that some fiscal policy rules can prevent business-cycle fluctuations in the economy by driving it to the optimal steady state as soon as they are announced.

Endogenous Growth and Fluctuations in an Overlapping Generations Economy with Credit Market Imperfections

We study the dynamic properties of growth rates in an overlapping generations economy with credit market imperfections. The analysis demonstrates that in early stages of financial development where credit constraints are severe, growth rates evolve monotonically. At the intermediate level of financial development, as the degree of credit market imperfections diminishes, growth rates exhibit endogenous fluctuations for some parameter values. However, as the financial sector matures, fluctuations disappear and the growth rates evolve once again monotonically.

The relative income hypothesis

Despite its theoretical dominance, the empirical case in favor of the permanent income hypothesis is weak. Contrary to one of its basic implications, a growing body of evidence suggests that rich households save a higher proportion of their permanent income than poor households. We propose an overlapping-generations economy where households care about relative consumption. As a result, an individual's consumption is driven by the comparison of his lifetime income and the lifetime income of his reference group; a permanent income version of Duesenberry's (1949) relative income hypothesis. Across households the savings rate increases with income while aggregate savings are independent of the income distribution.

Rethinking the informal labour from an evolutionary point of view

The model presents the dynamics and the equilibrium of an overlapping generation economy when there is informal employment, a pension system and altruistic agents. The model inspires from stylised facts on developing and Euro-Mediteranean countries where family plays a central role in risk insurance. The rational is emphasised by lower costs compared to private and public insurance systems. Given an initial distribution of the informally employed individuals, the model captures the effects of social security decisions and anticipated bequests on the preference of the agents for formal or informal employment. The impact of fiscal policies on the distribution of employment to formal and informal categories is analysed through the political competition. We show that opportunist behaviour would amplify the relative size of the informal employment.

Local indeterminacy under dynamic efficiency in a two-sector overlapping generations economy

Abstract We consider a two-sector two-periods overlapping generations model with inelastic labor, consumption in both periods of life and homothetic CES preferences. Assuming gross substitutability and a capital intensive consumption good, we prove that when dynamic efficiency holds, local indeterminacy and sunspot fluctuations occur with low enough values for the sectoral elasticities of capital-labor substitution and we illustrate this finding within a standard example. This result shows that some fiscal policy rules can prevent the existence of business-cycle fluctuations in the economy by driving it to the optimal steady state as soon as it is announced, and thus shows that Reichlin’s (1986) influential conclusion is compatible with positive elasticities of capital-labor substitution in a two-sector OLG economy.

On the Political Economy of Urban Growth: Homeownership versus Affordability

We study the equilibrium properties of an overlapping-generation economy where agents choose where to locate and how much housing to own, and city residents vote on the number of new building permits every period. Undersupply of housing persists in equilibrium under conditions we characterize. City residents invest in housing because they expect their investment to be protected by a majority opposed to urban growth. They vote against growth because they have invested in local housing. This vicious cycle between ownership and urban growth generates a tension between the common housing policy objectives of affordability for all and homeownership for most. (JEL D72, R11, R21, R23, R31, R38)

The Distribution of Wealth and Fiscal Policy in Economies With Finitely Lived Agents

We study the dynamics of the distribution of wealth in an overlapping generation economy with finitely lived agents and intergenerational transmission of wealth. Financial markets are incomplete, exposing agents to both labor and capital income risk. We show that the stationary wealth distribution is a Pareto distribution in the right tail and that it is capital income risk, rather than labor income, that drives the properties of the right tail of the wealth distribution. We also study analytically the dependence of the distribution of wealth—of wealth inequality in particular—on various fiscal policy instruments like capital income taxes and estate taxes, and on different degrees of social mobility. We show that capital income and estate taxes can significantly reduce wealth inequality, as do institutions favoring social mobility. Finally, we calibrate the economy to match the Lorenz curve of the wealth distribution of the U.S. economy.

The Governance of Perpetual Financial Intermediaries

In this paper we investigate the risk sharing potential of financial intermediaries in an overlapping generations economy. We find that the intermediaries allocations are constrained by the temptation of the living to liquidate their intermediary s assets and share the proceeds amongst themselves. We characterize the characterize this constraint set, and show that only intermediaries that can avoid side trading and the rolling over of deposits can improve on the market allocation. Furthermore, intermediaries may not achieve the constrained optimal allocation because the living are not willing to build a sufficiently large asset buffer.

The Demographics of Innovation and Asset Returns

We study asset-pricing implications of innovation in a general-equilibrium overlapping generations economy. Innovation increases the competitive pressure on existing firms and workers, reducing the profits of existing firms and eroding the human capital of older workers. Due to the lack of inter-generational risk sharing, innovation creates a systematic risk factor, which we call “displacement risk.†This risk helps explain several empirical patterns, including the existence of the growth-value factor in returns, the value premium, and the high equity premium. We assess the magnitude of misplacement risk using estimates of inter-cohort consumption differences across households and find support for the model.

Endogenous market incompleteness without market frictions: Dynamic suboptimality of competitive equilibrium in multiperiod overlapping generations economies

Abstract In this paper, we show that within the set of stochastic three-period-lived OLG economies with productive assets (such as land), markets are necessarily sequentially incomplete, and agents in the model do not share risk optimally. We start by characterizing perfect risk-sharing and find that it requires state-dependent consumption claims which depend only on the exogenous shock realizations. We show then that the recursive competitive equilibrium of any overlapping generations economy with weakly more than three generations is not strongly stationary. This then allows us to show directly that there are short-run Pareto improvements possible in terms of risk-sharing and hence, that the recursive competitive equilibrium is not Pareto optimal. We then show that a financial reform which eliminates the equity asset and replaces it with zero net supply insurance contracts (Arrow securities) will implement to Pareto optimal stochastic steady-state known to exist in the model. Finally, we also show via numerical simulations that a system of government taxes and transfers can lead to a Pareto improvement over the competitive equilibrium in the model.

Economic Growth and Welfare in a Neoclassical Overlapping Generations Growth Model with Minimum Wages and Consumption Taxes

AbstractWe examine the effects of minimum wages on both the long‐run per worker GDP and welfare in the textbook Diamond style overlapping generations economy. In addition, we assume the existence of unemployment benefits financed at a balanced budget with consumption taxes. Under suitable conditions, it is shown that a regulated‐wage economy with unemployment performs better than a competitive‐wage economy with full employment in the long run. Moreover, a welfare‐maximizing minimum wage exists. Our findings may have interesting policy implications.

Myopia and monetary equilibria

In an infinitely lived, representative individual economy, important properties of competitive equilibria, such as determinacy and the non-existence of monetary equilibria, are not robust to the introduction of myopia. An individual is myopic if, at each date, he plans consumption only for that date and few periods that immediately follow; that is, his planning horizon, n, is finite. Equilibria with myopia can display real indeterminacy and allow for monetary as well as non-monetary steady states; thus, they share some of the features of equilibria in economies of overlapping generation. The equilibrium price dynamics (but not the consumption dynamics) of an exchange economy with extreme myopia, n = 1, are identical to the dynamics of an overlapping generation economy with two-period lives.

Recursive Equilibrium in Stochastic Overlapping-Generations Economies

We prove the generic existence of a recursive equilibrium for overlapping-generations economies with uncertainty. Generic here means in a residual set of utilities and endowments. The result holds provided there is a sufficient number of potentially different individuals within each cohort.

The Demographics of Innovation and Asset Returns

We study asset-pricing implications of innovation in a general-equilibrium overlapping-generations economy. Innovation increases the competitive pressure on existing firms and workers, reducing the profits of existing firms and eroding the human capital of older workers. Due to the lack of inter-generational risk sharing, innovation creates a systematic risk factor, which we call risk.'' This risk helps explain several empirical patterns, including the existence of the growth-value factor in returns, the value premium, and the high equity premium. We assess the magnitude of displacement risk using estimates of inter-cohort consumption differences across households and find support for the model.

Optimal savings and health spending over the life cycle

This paper investigates the relationship between saving and health spending in a two-period overlapping generations economy. Individuals work in the first period of life and live in retirement in old age. Health spending is an activity that increases quality of life and longevity. Empirical evidence shows that both health spending and saving behave as luxury goods but their behaviour differs markedly according to the level of per capita GDP. The share of saving on GDP has a concave shape with respect to per capita GDP, whereas the share of health spending on GDP increases more than proportionally with respect to per capita GDP. The ratio of saving to spending is nonlinear with respect to income, i.e. first increasing and then decreasing. This ratio, in the proposed model, is equal to the ratio between the elasticity of the utility function with respect to saving and the elasticity of the utility function with respect to health.

Human Capital and Inequality Dynamics: The Role of Education Technology

The paper offers a unified way to examine several puzzles on inequality dynamics. It focuses on differences in the education technology and their effects on income distributions. Our overlapping generations economy has the following features: (1) consumers are heterogenous with respect to ability and parental human capital; and (2) intergenerational transfers take place via parental direct investment in education and, public education financed by taxes (possibly, with a level determined by majority voting). We explore several variations in the production of human capital, some attributed to ‘home‐education’ and others related to ‘public‐education’, and indicate how various changes in education technologies affect the intragenerational income inequality along the equilibrium path.

Internal vs. External Habit Formation in a Growing Economy with Overlapping Generations

This paper explores the roles of internal and external habit formation in a simple model of endogenous growth with overlapping generations. Unlike the representative agent settings in which the distinction between internal and external habits may not yield significant qualitative differences in working of the model economy, we show that the internal and external habit persistence in overlapping generations economies may have qualitatively different effects on the steady-state characterization as well as on the dynamic behavior of the economy. We also confirm that in an overlapping generations framework, whether the habits in the utility function takes subtractive or multiplicative forms may be critical both for long-run growth and for transitional dynamics.

On rational exuberance

In his seminal contribution, Tirole (1985) shows that an overlapping generations economy may monotonically converge to a steady state with a positive rational bubble, characterized by the dynamically efficient golden rule. The issue we address is whether this monotonic convergence to an efficient long run equilibrium may fail, while the economy experiences persistent endogenous fluctuations around the golden rule. Our explanation leads on the features of the credit market. We consider a simple overlapping generations model with three assets: money, capital and an asset paper, which behaves as a bubble. Collaterals matter because increasing the amount of capital and asset paper in the portfolio, the household reduces the share of consumption paid in cash. From a positive point of view, we show that the bubbly steady state can be locally indeterminate under arbitrarily small credit market imperfections and, thereby, persistent expectation-driven fluctuations of equilibria with (rational) bubbles can arise. From a normative point of view, monetary policies that are not too expansive are recommended in order to rule out the occurrence of sunspot fluctuations and enhance the welfare evaluated at the steady state.

Intergenerational Risksharing and Equilibrium Asset Prices: An Economy with Factor Accumulation

In an OLG (overlapping generations) economy with only two risky factors of production, human capital and physical capital, a social security system that optimally shares risks among generations was incorporated. By allowing for physical capital acumulation, this paper extends John Compbell's fixed supplies of asset economy into a dynamic environment. Under certain conditions, this new system has milder effects than Campbell's on risk-free interest rate, and prices and risk premium of physical capital. We also find that the level of human capital could make the system's effects on asset markets ambiguous and steady state physical capital stock is lower in the long run equilibrium.

Fluctuations in Overlapping Generations Economies

In the present paper stationary pure-exchange overlapping generations economies with L goods per date and M consumers per generation are considered. It is shown that for an open and dense set of utility functions there exist endowment vectors such that N-cycles exist for N less than or equal to L+1 and L less than or equal to M. The approach to existence of endogenous fluctuations is basic in the sense that the prime ingredients are the implicit function theorem and linear algebra. Moreover it is sketched how the approach can be applied to show that for an open and dense set of utility functions there exist endowment vectors such that sunspot equilibria, where prices at every date only depends on the state at that date, exist.