Can a Representative Agent Model Represent a Heterogeneous Agent Economy?
Accounting for observed fluctuations in aggregate employment, consumption, and real wage using the optimality conditions of a representative household requires preferences that are incompatible with economic priors. In order to reconcile theory with data, we construct a model with heterogeneous agen...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | text |
| Language: | English |
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Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University
2008
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/543 https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soe_research/article/1542/viewcontent/CanaRepresentative_AgentModel.pdf |
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| Institution: | Singapore Management University |
| Language: | English |
| Summary: | Accounting for observed fluctuations in aggregate employment, consumption, and real wage using the optimality conditions of a representative household requires preferences that are incompatible with economic priors. In order to reconcile theory with data, we construct a model with heterogeneous agents whose decisions are difficult to aggregate because of incomplete capital markets and the indivisible nature of labor supply. If we were to explain the model-generated aggregate time series using decisions of a stand-in household, such a household must have a nonconcave or unstable utility as is often found with the aggregate US data. |
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