IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bir/birmec/12-08.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Distributional Comparative Statics

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Kaae Jensen

Abstract

An important set of questions in economics concern how changes in the distribution of economic parameters (income, wealth, productivity, distortions, information, etc.) impact individual choices and market outcomes. We currently do not have tools to answer such questions. In this paper, I develop a theory of distributional comparative statics that addresses this set of issues. Central to the developments is a new concept called strategic risk-aversion which determines the outcome of the most distributional comparative statics exercises. As illustrations, I analyze the relationship between savings and the inequality, ask how risk influences agents' behavior in Bayesian games, and study con-cavity of policy functions in general stochastic dynamic programming problems.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Kaae Jensen, 2012. "Distributional Comparative Statics," Discussion Papers 12-08, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    • Handle: RePEc:bir:birmec:12-08
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repec.cal.bham.ac.uk/pdf/12-08.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert A. Pollak, 1971. "Additive Utility Functions and Linear Engel Curves," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(4), pages 401-414.
    2. Jean-Charles Rochet & Jean Tirole, 2003. "Platform Competition in Two-Sided Markets," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(4), pages 990-1029, June.
    3. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1990. "Rationalizability, Learning, and Equilibrium in Games with Strategic Complementarities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(6), pages 1255-1277, November.
    4. Martin Kaae Jensen, 2018. "Distributional Comparative Statics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(1), pages 581-610.
    5. Charles N. Noussair & Stefan T. Trautmann & Gijs van de Kuilen, 2014. "Higher Order Risk Attitudes, Demographics, and Financial Decisions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(1), pages 325-355.
    6. Mark Huggett, 2004. "Precautionary Wealth Accumulation," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 71(3), pages 769-781.
    7. Iñaki Aguirre & Simon Cowan & John Vickers, 2010. "Monopoly Price Discrimination and Demand Curvature," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1601-1615, September.
    8. Daron Acemoglu & Martin Kaae Jensen, 2015. "Robust Comparative Statics in Large Dynamic Economies," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(3), pages 587-640.
    9. Dorfman, Robert, 1979. "A Formula for the Gini Coefficient," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 61(1), pages 146-149, February.
    10. Drew Fudenberg & Jean Tirole, 1991. "Game Theory," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262061414, December.
    11. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    12. Van Zandt, Timothy & Vives, Xavier, 2007. "Monotone equilibria in Bayesian games of strategic complementarities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 134(1), pages 339-360, May.
    13. Marco Scarsini & Alfred Muller, 2006. "Stochastic order relations and lattices of probability measures," Post-Print hal-00539119, HAL.
    14. S. Rao Aiyagari, 1994. "Uninsured Idiosyncratic Risk and Aggregate Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(3), pages 659-684.
    15. Cowan, Simon & Vickers, John & Aguirre Pérez, Iñaki, 2009. "Monopoly Price Discrimination and Demand Curvature," IKERLANAK 2009-39, Universidad del País Vasco - Departamento de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico I.
    16. Acemoglu, Daron & Jensen, Martin Kaae, 2013. "Aggregate comparative statics," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 27-49.
    17. John Kennan, 2001. "Uniqueness of Positive Fixed Points for Increasing Concave Functions on Rn: An Elementary Result," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 4(4), pages 893-899, October.
    18. John K.-H Quah, 2007. "The Comparative Statics of Constrained Optimization Problems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(2), pages 401-431, March.
    19. Mas-Colell, Andreu & Whinston, Michael D. & Green, Jerry R., 1995. "Microeconomic Theory," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195102680.
    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. Anwesha Banerjee & Nicolas Gravel, 2020. "Contribution to a public good under subjective uncertainty," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(3), pages 473-500, June.
    2. Camacho, Carmen & Kamihigashi, Takashi & Sağlam, Çağrı, 2018. "Robust comparative statics for non-monotone shocks in large aggregative games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 288-299.
    3. Martin Kaae Jensen, 2018. "Distributional Comparative Statics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(1), pages 581-610.
    4. Açıkgöz, Ömer T., 2018. "On the existence and uniqueness of stationary equilibrium in Bewley economies with production," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 18-55.
    5. Carmen Camacho & Hye-Jin Cho, 2020. "Sorting in Credit Rationing: An Elementary Survey," PSE Working Papers halshs-03030433, HAL.
    6. Mira Frick & Ryota Iijima & Yuhta Ishii, 2018. "Dispersed Behavior and Perceptions in Assortative Societies," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2128R2, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Oct 2021.
    7. Daron Acemoglu & Martin Kaae Jensen, 2015. "Robust Comparative Statics in Large Dynamic Economies," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(3), pages 587-640.
    8. Stachurski, John & Toda, Alexis Akira, 2019. "An impossibility theorem for wealth in heterogeneous-agent models with limited heterogeneity," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 1-24.
    9. Adriani, Fabrizio & Sonderegger, Silvia, 2019. "A theory of esteem based peer pressure," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 314-335.
    10. Mira Frick & Ryota Iijima & Yuhta Ishii, 2018. "Dispersed Behavior and Perceptions in Assortative Societies," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2128R3, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Jun 2022.
    11. Damir Stijepic, 2019. "The impact of the productivity dispersion across employers on the labor's income share," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(1), pages 73-83.
    12. David Staines, 2023. "Stochastic Equilibrium the Lucas Critique and Keynesian Economics," Papers 2312.16214, arXiv.org.
    13. Mekonnen, Teddy & Leal Vizcaíno, René, 2022. "Bayesian comparative statics," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 17(1), January.
    14. Acikgoz, Omer, 2015. "On the Existence and Uniqueness of Stationary Equilibrium in Bewley Economies with Production," MPRA Paper 71066, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 30 Apr 2016.
    15. Uttiya Paul & Tarun Sabarwal, 2023. "Directional monotone comparative statics in function spaces," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 11(1), pages 153-169, April.
    16. Carmen Camacho & Hye-Jin Cho, 2020. "Sorting in Credit Rationing: An Elementary Survey," Working Papers halshs-03030433, HAL.
    17. Sanjith Gopalakrishnan & Daniel Granot & Frieda Granot & Greys Sošić & Hailong Cui, 2021. "Incentives and Emission Responsibility Allocation in Supply Chains," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(7), pages 4172-4190, July.

    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. Daron Acemoglu & Martin Kaae Jensen, 2015. "Robust Comparative Statics in Large Dynamic Economies," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(3), pages 587-640.
    2. Camacho, Carmen & Kamihigashi, Takashi & Sağlam, Çağrı, 2018. "Robust comparative statics for non-monotone shocks in large aggregative games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 288-299.
    3. Bar Light, 2021. "Stochastic Comparative Statics in Markov Decision Processes," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 46(2), pages 797-810, May.
    4. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899, January.
    5. Uttiya Paul & Tarun Sabarwal, 2023. "Directional monotone comparative statics in function spaces," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 11(1), pages 153-169, April.
    6. Roy, Sunanda & Sabarwal, Tarun, 2012. "Characterizing stability properties in games with strategic substitutes," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 337-353.
    7. Finn Christensen, 2019. "Comparative statics and heterogeneity," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 67(3), pages 665-702, April.
    8. Anne-Christine Barthel & Tarun Sabarwal, 2018. "Directional monotone comparative statics," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 66(3), pages 557-591, October.
    9. Andrew J. Monaco & Tarun Sabarwal, 2016. "Games with strategic complements and substitutes," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 62(1), pages 65-91, June.
    10. repec:kan:wpaper:201502 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Rabah Amir, 2018. "Special issue: supermodularity and monotone methods in economics," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 66(3), pages 547-556, October.
    12. Light, Bar & Weintraub, Gabriel, 2018. "Mean Field Equilibrium: Uniqueness, Existence, and Comparative Statics," Research Papers 3731, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    13. Nikolai Kukushkin, 2015. "The single crossing conditions for incomplete preferences," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 44(1), pages 225-251, February.
    14. repec:kan:wpaper:201412 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Calvo Pardo, H., 2007. "Are the antiglobalists right? Gains-from-trade without a walrasian acutioneer," Discussion Paper Series In Economics And Econometrics 0712, Economics Division, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton.
    16. E. Glen Weyl & Michal Fabinger, 2013. "Pass-Through as an Economic Tool: Principles of Incidence under Imperfect Competition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(3), pages 528-583.
    17. Michal Fabinger & E. Glen Weyl, 2018. "Functional Forms for Tractable Economic Models and the Cost Structure of International Trade," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1092, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    18. Łukasz Balbus & Paweł Dziewulski & Kevin Reffett & Łukasz Woźny, 2015. "Differential information in large games with strategic complementarities," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 59(1), pages 201-243, May.
    19. Amir, Rabah & Lazzati, Natalia, 2011. "Network effects, market structure and industry performance," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(6), pages 2389-2419.
    20. Hector Calvo-Pardo, 2009. "Are the antiglobalists right? Gains-from-trade without a Walrasian auctioneer," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 38(3), pages 561-592, March.
    21. Golosov, M. & Tsyvinski, A. & Werquin, N., 2016. "Recursive Contracts and Endogenously Incomplete Markets," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 725-841, Elsevier.
    22. Anderson, Simon P. & Peitz, Martin, 2020. "Media see-saws: Winners and losers in platform markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Comparative statics; strategic risk-aversion; income distribution; inequality; uncertainty; Bayesian games; dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models; concavity; convexity; policy functions; arg max correspondence;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
    • D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
    • D90 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General
    • E20 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • I30 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bir:birmec:12-08. 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: Oleksandr Talavera (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/debhauk.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.