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Incomplete Markets, Transitory Shocks, and Welfare

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Felix Kubler
Karl Schmedders

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Abstract

While equilibrium allocations in models with incomplete markets are generally not Pareto-efficient, it is often argued that quantitative welfare losses from missing assets are small when time-horizons are long and shocks are transitory. In this paper we use a computational analyses to show that even in the simplest infinite horizon model without aggregate uncertainty welfare losses can be substantial. Furthermore, we show that in this model, welfare losses form incomplete markets to not necessarily disappear when agents become more patient. We identify two scenarios under which this is the case. First, when the economic model is calibrated to higher frequency data, the persistence of negative income shocks must increase as well. In this case, the welfare loss of incomplete markets remains constant even as agents' rate of time preference B>1. Secondly, for a fixed specification of endowment processes, an exogenous decrease of agents' rate of discounting should not affect their abilities to borrow. With exogenous borrowing constraints, the incomplete markets welfare does not converge to complete markets welfare.

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Paper provided by Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science in its series Discussion Papers with number 1285.

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Date of creation: Feb 2000
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Handle: RePEc:nwu:cmsems:1285

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  4. David K. Levine & William Zame, 1996. "Debt Constraints and Equilibrium in Infinite Horizon Economies with Incomplete Markets," Levine's Working Paper Archive 1954, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Wouter J. Denhaan, 2000. "The Importance Of The Number Of Different Agents In A Heterogeneous Asset-Pricing Model," Computing in Economics and Finance 2000 349, Society for Computational Economics.
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  7. David K Levine & William R Zame, 2000. "Risk Sharing and Market Incompleteness," Levine's Working Paper Archive 2080, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  10. Judd, Kenneth L. & Kubler, Felix & Schmedders, Karl, 2000. "Computing equilibria in infinite-horizon finance economies: The case of one asset," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 24(5-7), pages 1047-1078, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Josep Pijoan-Mas, 2006. "Precautionary Savings or Working Longer Hours?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 9(2), pages 326-352, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Henry Kim & Jinill Kim & Robert Kollmann, 2005. "Applying Perturbation Methods to Incomplete Market Models with Exogenous Borrowing Constraints," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 0504, Department of Economics, Tufts University. [Downloadable!]
  3. Juan-Carlos Cordoba, 2004. "Debt-Constraints or Incomplete Markets? A Decomposition of the Wealth and Consumption Inequality in the U.S," Macroeconomics 0404004, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Jinill Kim & Sunghyun Henry Kim & Andrew Levin, 2001. "Patience, persistence and welfare costs of incomplete markets in open economies," International Finance Discussion Papers 696, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
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  5. Giorgio Primiceri & Thijs van Rens, 2002. "Inequality over the Business Cycle: Estimating Income Risk Using Micro-Data on Consumption," Economics Working Papers 943, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Oct 2004. [Downloadable!]
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  6. Ahmet Akyol & Kartik Artheya, 2003. "Risky higher education and subsidies," Working Paper 03-02, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Chiaki Hara & James Huang & Christoph Kuzmics, 2006. "Efficient Risk-Sharing Rules with Heterogeneous Risk Attitudes and Background Risks," Working Papers 621, Kyoto University, Institute of Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
  8. Alexis Anagnostopoulos, 2004. "Potential Welfare Losses from Financial Autarky and Trade Sanctions," Economics Working Papers ECO2004/35, European University Institute. [Downloadable!]
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