Essays on General Equilibrium with Heterogeneous Agents

Essays on General Equilibrium with Heterogeneous Agents PDF Author: Ruediger Bachmann
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780549064817
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
In the third chapter, I investigate the testable implications of Pareto efficiency and individual rationality on finite data sets in strictly concave and smooth exchange economies with finitely many commodities and agents. Using quantifier elimination, I derive non-parametric restrictions on allocation data imposed by these concepts. Efficiency alone provides no restrictions other than a trivial "no waste"-condition. Efficiency together with individual rationality renders robust restrictions.

Essays on General Equilibrium with Heterogeneous Agents

Essays on General Equilibrium with Heterogeneous Agents PDF Author: Ruediger Bachmann
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780549064817
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
In the third chapter, I investigate the testable implications of Pareto efficiency and individual rationality on finite data sets in strictly concave and smooth exchange economies with finitely many commodities and agents. Using quantifier elimination, I derive non-parametric restrictions on allocation data imposed by these concepts. Efficiency alone provides no restrictions other than a trivial "no waste"-condition. Efficiency together with individual rationality renders robust restrictions.

Essays on Business Cycles and Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Models with Heterogeneous Agents

Essays on Business Cycles and Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Models with Heterogeneous Agents PDF Author: Jonghyeon Oh
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 95

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Book Description
This dissertation focuses on business cycles and dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models with heterogeneous agents. Micro-data either for households or for firms are important sources to understand macroeconomic movements. Heterogeneous agent models are useful tools to study the implications of microeconomic aspects of economy on macroeconomy.

Three Essays on Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Models with Heterogeneous Agents and Financial Frictions

Three Essays on Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Models with Heterogeneous Agents and Financial Frictions PDF Author: Tianli Zhao
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 96

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Book Description


Essays on Macroeconomics with Heterogeneous Agents

Essays on Macroeconomics with Heterogeneous Agents PDF Author: Kyooho Kwon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Labor supply
Languages : en
Pages : 84

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Book Description
"Chapter 1 develops a heterogeneous-agent general equilibrium model that incorporates both intensive and extensive margins of labor supply. A nonconvexity in the mapping between time devoted to work and labor services distinguishes between extensive and intensive margins. We consider calibrated versions of this model that differ in the value of a key preference parameter for labor supply and the extent of heterogeneity. The model is able to capture the key features of the empirical hours worked distribution, including how individuals transit within this distribution. We then study how the various specifications influence labor supply responses to temporary shocks and permanent tax changes, with a particular focus on the intensive and extensive margin elasticities in response to these changes. We find important interactions between heterogeneity and the extent of curvature in preferences. Chapter 2 builds a model of family labor supply in which individuals choose between full-time work, part-time work, and nonemployment. The model is calibrated to replicate the movements of both male and female workers among these states. The willingness to substitute hours over time (the so-called intertemporal elasticity of labor supply) is critical for many economic analysis. A common strategy for uncovering the value of this willingness is to carry out structural estimation on micro panel data. One general issue in this estimation exercises using micro data is that misspecification of the constraints that individuals face is likely to influence inference about preference parameters. In the model economy, although the individual labor supply problem is a discrete choice problem, individuals are able to adjust hours along the intensive margin by moving between part-time and fulltime work. Intuitively, adjustment along the intensive margin potentially allows one to estimate the true value of the underlying curvature parameter describing the utility from leisure. We explore the extent to which standard labor supply methods can achieve this in our setting. Although these methods deliver precise estimates that are significantly different from zero, the estimates are effectively unrelated to the true underlying values. These methods also deliver elasticity estimates for women, even when the underlying preference parameters are the same for men and women. Chapter 3 investigates the optimal progressive tax code in an incomplete-market economy in which households are linked intergenerationally by altruism and earning ability. The model economy is calibrated to that of the US with the progressive tax code suggested by Gouviea and Strauss (1994). First, I compute the equilibrium with the optimal progressive tax code. Second, I investigate the extent to which the size of government welfare programs affects the optimal progressivity of the income tax code. I find that the optimal tax code for an economy populated with altruistic households is approximately equivalent to a proportional tax of 23.1% with a fixed deduction of approximately $17,000 in 1990 US dollars. For an economy populated with non-altruistic households, however, these numbers are 18.8% and $12,000 respectively. This result implies that inequality is more severe in an economy with intergenerational links so that the policy maker requires a more progressive tax system to provide insurance. Additionally, I find that when the size of the government welfare program is chosen carefully, the additional insurance benefits from the progressive income tax code disappear"--Pages iv-v.

Interaction and Market Structure

Interaction and Market Structure PDF Author: Domenico Delli Gatti
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783642570063
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Essays in Dynamic General Equilibrium

Essays in Dynamic General Equilibrium PDF Author: Dân Vuʺ Cao
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
This thesis consists of three chapters studying dynamic economies in general equilibrium. The first chapter considers an economy in business cycles with potentially imperfect financial markets. The second chapter investigates an economy in its balanced growth path with heterogeneous firms. The third chapter analyzes dynamic competitions that these firms are potentially engaged in. The first chapter, "Asset Price and Real Investment Volatility with Heterogeneous Beliefs," sheds light on the role of imperfect financial markets on the economic and financial crisis 2007-2008. This crisis highlights the role of financial markets in allowing economic agents, including prominent banks, to speculate on the future returns of different financial assets, such as mortgage-backed securities. I introduce a dynamic general equilibrium model with aggregate shocks, potentially incomplete markets and heterogeneous agents to investigate this role of financial markets. In addition to their risk aversion and endowments, agents differ in their beliefs about the future aggregate states of the economy. The difference in beliefs induces them to take large bets under frictionless complete financial markets, which enable agents to leverage their future wealth. Consequently, as hypothesized by Friedman (1953), under complete markets, agents with incorrect beliefs will eventually be driven out of the markets. In this case, they also have no influence on asset prices and real investment in the long run. In contrast, I show that under incomplete markets generated by collateral constraints, agents with heterogeneous (potentially incorrect) beliefs survive in the long run and their speculative activities drive up asset price volatility and real investment volatility permanently. I also show that collateral constraints are always binding even if the supply of collateralizable assets endogenously responds to their price. I use this framework to study the effects of different types of regulations and the distribution of endowments on leverage, asset price volatility and investment. Lastly, the analytical tools developed in this framework enable me to prove the existence of the recursive equilibrium in Krusell and Smith (1998) with a finite number of types. This has been an open question in the literature. The second chapter, "Innovation from Incumbents and Entrants," is a joint work with Daron Acemoglu. We propose a simple modification of the basic Schumpeterian endogenous growth models, by allowing incumbents to undertake innovations to improve their products. This model provides a tractable framework for a simultaneous analysis of entry of new firms and the expansion of existing firms, as well as the decomposition of productivity growth between continuing establishments and new entrants. One lesson we learn from this analysis is that, unlike in the basic Schumpeterian models, taxes or entry barriers on potential entrants might increase economic growth. It is the outcome of the greater productivity improvements by incumbents in response to reduced entry, which outweighs the negative effect of the reduction in creative destruction. As the model features entry of new firms and expansion and exit of existing firms, it also generates an equilibrium firm size distribution. We show that the stationary firm size distribution is Pareto with an exponent approximately equal to one (the so-called "Zipf distribution"). The third chapter, "Racing: when should we handicap the advantaged competitor?" studies dynamic competitions, for example R & D competitions used in the second chapters. Two competitors with different abilities engage in a winner-take-all race; should we handicap the advantaged competitor in order to reduce the expected completion time of the race? I show that if the discouragement effect is strong, i.e., both competitors are discouraged from exerting effort when it becomes more certain who will win the race, we should handicap the advantaged. We can handicap him either by reducing his ability or by offering him a lower reward if he wins. Doing so induces higher effort not only from the disadvantaged competitor because of his higher incentive from a higher chance of winning the race but also from the advantaged competitor because of their strategic interactions. Therefore, the expected completion time is strictly shortened. To prove the existence and uniqueness of the equilibria (including symmetric and asymmetric equilibria) that leads to the conclusion, I use a boundary value problem formulation which is novel to the dynamic competition literature. In some cases, I obtain closed-form solutions of the equilibria.

Essays on Macroeconomics with Heterogeneous Agents

Essays on Macroeconomics with Heterogeneous Agents PDF Author: Min Fang (Economist)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Housing
Languages : en
Pages : 147

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Book Description
"This dissertation consists of essays addressing the macroeconomic outcomes of heterogeneous agent general equilibrium models with micro-level frictions. Each chapter employs both empirical and quantitative macroeconomic methods. The first chapter studies the impact of elevated volatility on the effectiveness of monetary policy on aggregate investment under firm-level capital adjustment costs. I argue that monetary policy is less effective at stimulating investment during periods of elevated volatility in firm-level TFP than during normal times. Empirically, I document that high volatility weakens investment responses to monetary stimulus. I then develop a heterogeneous firm New Keynesian model with lumpy investment to interpret these findings. In the model, non-convex capital adjustment costs create a sizable extensive margin of investment which is more sensitive to changes in both interest rate and volatility than the intensive margin. When volatility is high, firms tend to stay inactive at the extensive margin, so monetary stimulus motivates less investment at the extensive margin. I find that the quantitative implications of the model are primarily shaped by the specifications of the capital adjustment costs. Unlike much of the prior literature, I use the dynamic moments of investment to identify this key model element. Based on this parameterization, high volatility reduces the effectiveness of monetary stimulus for investment by 30%. This reduction is about half of what I find in the data. Therefore, the effect of monetary policy depends on both the lumpy nature of firm-level investment and fluctuations in volatility. The second chapter studies the role of migration and housing constraints in determining income inequality within and across Chinese cities. Combining microdata and a spatial equilibrium model, we quantify the impact of the massive spatial reallocation of workers and the rapid growth of housing costs on the national income distribution. We first show several stylized facts detailing the strong positive correlation between migration inflows, housing costs, and imputed income inequality among Chinese cities. We then build a spatial equilibrium model featuring workers with heterogeneous skills, housing constraints, and heterogeneous returns from housing ownership to explain these facts. Our quantitative results indicate that the reductions in migration costs and the disproportionate growth in productivity across cities and skills result in the observed massive migration flows. Combining with the tight land supply policy in big cities, the expansion of the housing demand causes the rapid growth of housing costs, and enlarges the inequality between local housing owners and migrants. The counterfactual analysis shows that if we redistribute land supply increment by migrant flow and increase land supply toward cities with more migrants, we could lower the within-city income inequality by 14% and the national income inequality by 18%. Meanwhile, we can simultaneously encourage more migration into higher productivity cities"--Pages vii-viii.

Essays on Financial Frictions and Macroeconomic Dynamics with Heterogeneous Agents

Essays on Financial Frictions and Macroeconomic Dynamics with Heterogeneous Agents PDF Author: Lini Zhang
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 102

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Book Description
This dissertation develops dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models in which financial frictions interact with rich household heterogeneity to study the implication of financial shocks for aggregate fluctuations.

Equilibrium, Markets and Dynamics

Equilibrium, Markets and Dynamics PDF Author: Cars H. Hommes
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642561314
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
This book contains essays in honour of Claus Weddepohl who, after 22 years, is retiring as professor of mathematical economics at the Department of Quantitative Economics of the University of Amsterdam. Claus Weddepohl may be viewed as th~ first Dutch mathematical economist in the general equi librium tradition of Arrow, Debreu and Hahn. The essays in this book are centered around the themes Equilibrium, Markets and Dynamics, that have been at the heart of Weddepohl's work on mathematical economics for more than three decades. The essays have been classified according to these three themes. Admittedly such a classification always is somewhat arbitrary, and most essays would in fact fit into two or even all three themes. The essays have been written by international as well as Dutch friends and colleagues including Weddepohl's former Ph. D. students. The book starts with a review of Claus Weddepohl's work by Roald Ramer, who has been working with him in Amsterdam for all those years. The review describes how Weddepohl became fascinated by general equilibrium theory in the early stages of his career, how he has been working on the theory of markets throughout his career, and how he turned to applications of nonlinear dynamics to price adjustment processes in a later stage of his career. The first part of the book, Equilibrium, collects essays with general equilib rium theory as the main theme.

Essays in Macroeconomics with Heterogeneous Agents

Essays in Macroeconomics with Heterogeneous Agents PDF Author: Nikita R. Céspedes Reynaga
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Brain drain
Languages : en
Pages : 98

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Book Description
"This thesis is a collection of essays on development economics from a macro-quantitative perspective. These issues are studied in subsequent chapters. In Chapter 1, I study migration from a quantitative perspective. Developing countries have experienced an outstanding outflow of skilled workers (brain drain) over the last several decades. Additionally, migrants tend to be tied to their country of birth, since they send large amounts of remittances to their relatives. Furthermore, migration is not permanent, since a considerable number of workers return to their country of birth after a migration spell. In this paper I develop a model that is consistent with these facts. I use this model to address some important issues in the migration literature from a theoretical perspective. I study the general equilibrium effects of migration, its long-term effects, its welfare effects, and evaluate whether the joint effect of return migration and remittances is strong enough to offset the effects of the brain drain (effects of skilled migration). In a final step, I evaluate the effectiveness of policy interventions that attempt to offset the effects of the brain drain. In Chapter 2, I study the economic effects of an anti-poverty conditional cash transfers (CCT) policy by using a stylized dynamic general equilibrium model. I look at the program's impact on output, human capital, poverty and income inequality. I also study its welfare implications and its effects on the intergenerational transmission of poverty. The quantitative analysis reveals that a long-term implementation of this anti-poverty program helps to reduce the intergenerationa transmission of poverty. In aggregate terms the welfare gain is small but varies across agents; the winners are those who are in the lower tail of the income distribution and the losers are those located in the upper tail. Finally, this program increases the human capital of households and, through this channel, induces a consistent reduction of both poverty and income inequality"--Page v-vi.