Ho-Mou Wu (Department of Economics, National Taiwan University and Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, 21 Hsu Chow Road, Taipei 10020, TAIWAN) Mordecai Kurz (Department of Economics, Serra Street at Galvez, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-6072, USA)
Abstract
This paper views uncertainty and economic fluctuations as being primarily endogenous and internally propagated phenomena. The most important Endogenous Uncertainty examined in this paper is price uncertainty which arises when agents do not have structural knowledge and are complelled to make decisions on the basis of their beliefs. We assume that agents adopt Rational Beliefs as in Kurz [1994a]. The trading of endogenous uncertainty is accomplished by using Price Contingent Contracts (PCC) rather than the Arrow-Debreu state contingent contracts. The paper provides a full construction of the "price state space" which requires the expansion of the exogenous state space to include the "state of beliefs." This construction is central to the analysis of equilibrium with endogenous uncertainty and the paper provides an existence theorem for a Rational Belief Equilibrium with PCC. It shows how the PCC completes the markets for trading endogenous uncertainty and lead to an allocation which is Pareto optimal. This paper also demonstrates that endogenous uncertainty is generically present in this new equilibrium.
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Article provided by Springer in its journal Economic Theory.
Volume (Year): 8 (1996) Issue (Month): 3 () Pages: 461-488 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML,
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Find related papers by JEL classification: D5 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations G13 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Contingent Pricing; Futures Pricing
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