IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cla/levarc/786969000000000111.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Decentralization, Communication, and the Origins of Fluctuations

Author

Listed:
  • George-Marios Angeletos
  • Jennifer La'O

Abstract

We consider a class of convex, competitive, neoclassical economies in which agents are rational; the equilibrium is unique; there is no room for randomization devices; and there are no shocks to preferences, technologies, endowments, or other fundamentals. In short, we rule out every known source of macroeconomic volatility. And yet, we show that these economies can be ridden with large and persistent fluctuations in equilibrium allocations and prices. These fluctuations emerge because decentralized trading impedes communication and, in so doing, opens the door to self-fulfilling beliefs despite the uniqueness of the equilibrium. In line with Keynesian thinking, these fluctuations may be attributed to "coordination failures" and "animal spirits". They may also take the form of "fads", or waves of optimism and pessimism that spread in the population like contagious diseases. Yet, these ostensibly pathological phenomena emerge at the heart of the neoclassical paradigm and require neither a deviation from rationality, nor multiple equilibria, nor even a divergence between private and social motives.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • George-Marios Angeletos & Jennifer La'O, 2011. "Decentralization, Communication, and the Origins of Fluctuations," Levine's Working Paper Archive 786969000000000111, David K. Levine.
  • Handle: RePEc:cla:levarc:786969000000000111
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.dklevine.com/archive/refs4786969000000000111.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Diamond, Peter & Fudenberg, Drew, 1989. "Rational Expectations Business Cycles in Search Equilibrium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(3), pages 606-619, June.
    2. Benhabib Jess & Farmer Roger E. A., 1994. "Indeterminacy and Increasing Returns," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 19-41, June.
    3. Manuel Amador & Pierre-Olivier Weill, 2010. "Learning from Prices: Public Communication and Welfare," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(5), pages 866-907.
    4. George-Marios Angeletos & Jennifer La'O, 2010. "Noisy Business Cycles," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2009, Volume 24, pages 319-378, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Olivier J. Blanchard & Jean-Paul L'Huillier & Guido Lorenzoni, 2013. "News, Noise, and Fluctuations: An Empirical Exploration," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(7), pages 3045-3070, December.
    6. Bartosz Mackowiak & Mirko Wiederholt, 2009. "Optimal Sticky Prices under Rational Inattention," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 769-803, June.
    7. Ricardo Lagos & Randall Wright, 2005. "A Unified Framework for Monetary Theory and Policy Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(3), pages 463-484, June.
    8. George A. Akerlof, 2009. "How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why It Matters," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1175-1175.
    9. Robert Shimer, 2009. "Convergence in Macroeconomics: The Labor Wedge," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 280-297, January.
    10. Craig Burnside & Martin Eichenbaum & Sergio Rebelo, 2016. "Understanding Booms and Busts in Housing Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(4), pages 1088-1147.
    11. Russell Cooper & Andrew John, 1988. "Coordinating Coordination Failures in Keynesian Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 103(3), pages 441-463.
    12. George-Marios Angeletos & Alessandro Pavan, 2007. "Efficient Use of Information and Social Value of Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(4), pages 1103-1142, July.
    13. Amador, Manuel & Weill, Pierre-Olivier, 2006. "Learning from Private and Public Observation of Other's Actions," MPRA Paper 109, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Cass, David & Shell, Karl, 1983. "Do Sunspots Matter?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(2), pages 193-227, April.
    15. George-Marios Angeletos & Alessandro Pavan, 2009. "Policy with Dispersed Information," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(1), pages 11-60, March.
    16. Nir Jaimovich & Sergio Rebelo, 2009. "Can News about the Future Drive the Business Cycle?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1097-1118, September.
    17. Xavier Vives, 2007. "Information and Learning in Markets," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000001520, UCLA Department of Economics.
    18. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521818742, January.
    19. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521524117, January.
    20. Sanford J. Grossman, 1981. "An Introduction to the Theory of Rational Expectations Under Asymmetric Information," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 48(4), pages 541-559.
    21. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521818735, January.
    22. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521524124, January.
    23. Hellwig, Christian & Venkateswaran, Venky, 2009. "Setting the right prices for the wrong reasons," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(S), pages 57-77.
    24. Guido Lorenzoni, 2009. "A Theory of Demand Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 2050-2084, December.
    25. Kiminori Matsuyama, 1991. "Increasing Returns, Industrialization, and Indeterminacy of Equilibrium," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 106(2), pages 617-650.
    26. Paul Beaudry & Franck Portier, 2006. "Stock Prices, News, and Economic Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1293-1307, September.
    27. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521818728, January.
    28. Diamond, Peter A, 1982. "Aggregate Demand Management in Search Equilibrium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(5), pages 881-894, October.
    29. Dewatripont,Mathias & Hansen,Lars Peter & Turnovsky,Stephen J. (ed.), 2003. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521524131, January.
    30. Darrell Duffie & Gustavo Manso, 2007. "Information Percolation in Large Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 203-209, May.
    31. Benhabib, Jess & Farmer, Roger E.A., 1999. "Indeterminacy and sunspots in macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 387-448, Elsevier.
    32. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1972. "Expectations and the neutrality of money," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 103-124, April.
    33. Howitt, Peter & McAfee, R Preston, 1992. "Animal Spirits," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 493-507, June.
    34. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Wright, Randall, 1993. "A Search-Theoretic Approach to Monetary Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(1), pages 63-77, March.
    35. Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin, 2002. "Social Value of Public Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1521-1534, December.
    36. Lucas, Robert Jr. & Prescott, Edward C., 1974. "Equilibrium search and unemployment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 188-209, February.
    37. Narayana R. Kocherlakota, 2010. "Modern macroeconomic models as tools for economic policy," The Region, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 24(May), pages 5-21.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Demand in the gaps?
      by Noah Smith in Noahpinion on 2014-07-13 12:27:00

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Cosmin L. Ilut & Martin Schneider, 2014. "Ambiguous Business Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2368-2399, August.
    2. George-Marios Angeletos & Jennifer La’O, 2020. "Optimal Monetary Policy with Informational Frictions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(3), pages 1027-1064.
    3. Marta Areosa. Waldyr Areosa, 2012. "Asset Prices and Monetary Policy – A sticky-dispersed information model," Working Papers Series 285, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    4. Nakov, Anton & Nuño, Galo, 2015. "Learning from experience in the stock market," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 224-239.
    5. Leonardo Melosi & Francesco Bianchi, 2012. "Inflationary Sentiments and Monetary Policy Communcation," 2012 Meeting Papers 893, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. Giacomo Rondina & Todd Walker, 2016. "Learning and Informational Stability of Dynamic REE with Incomplete Information," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 21, pages 147-159, 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. Angeletos, G.-M. & Lian, C., 2016. "Incomplete Information in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1065-1240, Elsevier.
    2. George-Marios Angeletos & Chen Lian, 2016. "Incomplete Information in Macroeconomics: Accommodating Frictions in Coordination," NBER Working Papers 22297, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. George-Marios Angeletos, 2018. "Frictional Coordination," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 563-603.
    4. Benhima, Kenza, 2019. "Booms and busts with dispersed information," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 32-47.
    5. Guimaraes, Bernardo & Machado, Caio, 2013. "Demand expectations and the timing of stimulus policies," MPRA Paper 48895, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. George-Marios Angeletos & Luigi Iovino & Jennifer La'O, 2011. "Cycles, Gaps, and the Social Value of Information," NBER Working Papers 17229, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Leonardo Melosi, 2017. "Signalling Effects of Monetary Policy," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 84(2), pages 853-884.
    8. George‐Marios Angeletos & Fabrice Collard & Harris Dellas, 2018. "Quantifying Confidence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(5), pages 1689-1726, September.
    9. Michael Rousakis, 2013. "Expectations and Fluctuations: The Role of Monetary Policy," 2013 Meeting Papers 681, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Mäkinen, Taneli & Ohl, Björn, 2015. "Information acquisition and learning from prices over the business cycle," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 158(PB), pages 585-633.
    11. Kets, Willemien & Kager, Wouter & Sandroni, Alvaro, 2022. "The value of a coordination game," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    12. George-Marios Angeletos & Jennifer La'O, 2010. "Noisy Business Cycles," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2009, Volume 24, pages 319-378, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Ennis, Huberto M. & Keister, Todd, 2005. "Government policy and the probability of coordination failures," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 939-973, May.
    14. Rousakis, Michael, 2012. "Expectations and Fluctuations: The Role of Monetary Policy," Economic Research Papers 270655, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    15. George-Marios Angeletos & Guido Lorenzoni & Alessandro Pavan, 2010. "Beauty Contests and Irrational Exuberance: A Neoclassical Approach," NBER Working Papers 15883, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. 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.
    17. Frederick van der Ploeg, 2005. "Back to Keynes?," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo, vol. 51(4), pages 777-822.
    18. Amberger, Korie, 2013. "The Role of Capital on Noise Shocks," MPRA Paper 46483, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Iachan, Felipe S. & Nenov, Plamen T., 2015. "Information quality and crises in regime-change games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 158(PB), pages 739-768.
    20. Daniel Susskind, 2022. "Rational inattention and public signals," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 58(2), pages 225-255, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D52 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Incomplete Markets
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; 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:cla:levarc:786969000000000111. 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: David K. Levine (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.dklevine.com/ .

    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.