IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedreq/y2010i4qp399-416nv.96no.4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Risk sharing, investment, and incentives in the neoclassical growth model

Author

Listed:
  • Emilio Espino
  • Juan M. Sanchez

Abstract

We first study growth and risk sharing in a stochastic growth model with preference shocks and two risk-averse agents. In periods in which one of the agents needs extra consumption (insurance), it is socially optimal to reduce the consumption of the other agent (redistribution) and also to accumulate fewer resources for the future (disinvestment). The latter hurts growth while the former only affects the distribution of aggregate consumption. Then, to analyze if information matters, we study if the same allocation would be implementable under private information. We find that it depends on the state of the economy. The provision of insurance that is implemented by reducing capital accumulation deteriorates the prospects of all agents in the economy and thus helps to alleviate informational frictions. The size of redistribution versus disinvestment and the outlook of economic growth at the time of disinvestment affects the possibilities of implementing the best possible allocation when the preference shock is private information. Therefore, we conjecture that under private information the best allocation compatible with incentives would tend to hurt growth and to concentrate resources in agents with private information in order to provide incentives to report the shock truthfully.

Suggested Citation

  • Emilio Espino & Juan M. Sanchez, 2010. "Risk sharing, investment, and incentives in the neoclassical growth model," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 96(4Q), pages 399-416.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedreq:y:2010:i:4q:p:399-416:n:v.96no.4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.richmondfed.org/-/media/RichmondFedOrg/publications/research/economic_quarterly/2010/q4/pdf/sanchez.pdf
    File Function: Full Text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Khan, Aubhik & Ravikumar, B., 2001. "Growth and risk-sharing with private information," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 499-521, June.
    2. Jeremy Greenwood & Juan M. Sanchez & Cheng Wang, 2010. "Financing Development: The Role of Information Costs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1875-1891, September.
    3. Sorger, Gerhard, 2002. "On the Long-Run Distribution of Capital in the Ramsey Model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 226-243, July.
    4. Stephen E. Spear & Sanjay Srivastava, 1987. "On Repeated Moral Hazard with Discounting," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 54(4), pages 599-617.
    5. Espino, Emilio, 2005. "On Ramsey's conjecture: efficient allocations in the neoclassical growth model with private information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 121(2), pages 192-213, April.
    6. Jeremy Greenwood & Juan Sanchez & Cheng Wang, 2013. "Quantifying the Impact of Financial Development on Economic Development," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(1), pages 194-215, January.
    7. Wang, Cheng, 1997. "Incentives, CEO Compensation, and Shareholder Wealth in a Dynamic Agency Model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 72-105, September.
    8. Thomas, Jonathan & Worrall, Tim, 1990. "Income fluctuation and asymmetric information: An example of a repeated principal-agent problem," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 367-390, August.
    9. Beker, Pablo F. & Espino, Emilio, 2011. "The dynamics of efficient asset trading with heterogeneous beliefs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(1), pages 189-229, January.
    10. Hall, Robert E, 1997. "Macroeconomic Fluctuations and the Allocation of Time," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(1), pages 223-250, January.
    11. Chatterjee, Satyajit, 1994. "Transitional dynamics and the distribution of wealth in a neoclassical growth model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 97-119, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jeremy Greenwood & Juan Sanchez & Cheng Wang, 2013. "Quantifying the Impact of Financial Development on Economic Development," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(1), pages 194-215, January.
    2. Wang, Cheng, 1997. "Incentives, CEO Compensation, and Shareholder Wealth in a Dynamic Agency Model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 72-105, September.
    3. Josef Schroth, 2015. "Risk Sharing in the Presence of a Public Good," Staff Working Papers 15-27, Bank of Canada.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Espino, Emilio, 2005. "On Ramsey's conjecture: efficient allocations in the neoclassical growth model with private information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 121(2), pages 192-213, April.
    2. Espino, Emilio & Kozlowski, Julian & Sánchez, Juan M., 2018. "Investment and bilateral insurance," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 311-341.
    3. Gian Luca Clementi & Thomas Cooley & Sonia Di Giannatale, 2010. "A Theory of Firm Decline," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(4), pages 861-885, October.
    4. Emilio Espino & Julian Kozlowski & Juan M. Sanchez, 2013. "Too big to cheat: Efficiency and Investment in Partnerships," Working Papers 2013-001, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    5. Emilio Espino, 2012. "Investment and Insurance in an Economic Union," 2012 Meeting Papers 1176, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. Quadrini, Vincenzo, 2004. "Investment and liquidation in renegotiation-proof contracts with moral hazard," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(4), pages 713-751, May.
    7. Stephane Verani, 2018. "Aggregate Consequences of Dynamic Credit Relationships," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 29, pages 44-67, July.
    8. S. Rao Aiyagari & Stephen D. Williamson, 1999. "Credit in a Random Matching Model with Private Information," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 2(1), pages 36-64, January.
    9. Wang, Cheng, 2011. "Termination of dynamic contracts in an equilibrium labor market model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(1), pages 74-110, January.
    10. Benjamin Moll & Robert M. Townsend & Victor Zhorin, 2013. "Economic Development, Flow of Funds and the Equilibrium Interaction of Financial Frictions," NBER Working Papers 19618, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Stephane Verani, 2018. "Aggregate Consequences of Dynamic Credit Relationships," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 29, pages 44-67, July.
    12. Grechyna, Daryna, 2018. "Firm size, bank size, and financial development," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 19-37.
    13. Cheng Wang & Youzhi Yang, 2023. "On the Pure Theory of Wage Dispersion," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 47, pages 246-277, January.
    14. Roozbeh Hosseini & Larry E. Jones & Ali Shourideh, 2009. "Risk Sharing, Inequality and Fertility," NBER Working Papers 15111, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Giat, Yahel & Subramanian, Ajay, 2013. "Dynamic contracting under imperfect public information and asymmetric beliefs," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 2833-2861.
    16. Arantxa Jarque, 2010. "Hidden effort, learning by doing, and wage dynamics," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 96(4Q), pages 339-372.
    17. Richard M. H. Suen, 2014. "Time Preference And The Distributions Of Wealth And Income," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(1), pages 364-381, January.
    18. Sanktjohanser, Anna & Hörner, Johannes, 2022. "Too Much of A Good Thing?," TSE Working Papers 22-1327, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    19. Noah Williams, 2011. "Persistent Private Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(4), pages 1233-1275, July.
    20. Alam, M. Jahangir, 2020. "Capital misallocation: Cyclicality and sources," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic growth; Business cycles;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedreq:y:2010:i:4q:p:399-416:n:v.96no.4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christian Pascasio (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbrius.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.