Reducing Overlapping Generations Economies to Finite Economies
This paper establishes in a general way the existence of a connection between the stationary equilibria of an infinite horizon economy and the equilibria of a naturally related finite economy.
More specifically, the connection is established first between the cycles of a stationary overlapping generations economy and the equilibria of a related finite economy with a cyclical structure. Then the connection is shown to hold also when extrinsic uncertainty (a sunspot) is introduced in the models. The connection holds in this case between a kind of sunspot equilibria called here sunspot cycles, and the correlated equilibria of the finite economy when there is asymmetric information about the extrinsic uncertainty. Incidentally, the sunspot cycles constitute a class of sunspot equilibria that are able to generate time series fluctuating in the recurrent but irregular way characteristic to some economic time series.
More specifically, the connection is established first between the cycles of a stationary overlapping generations economy and the equilibria of a related finite economy with a cyclical structure. Then the connection is shown to hold also when extrinsic uncertainty (a sunspot) is introduced in the models. The connection holds in this case between a kind of sunspot equilibria called here sunspot cycles, and the correlated equilibria of the finite economy when there is asymmetric information about the extrinsic uncertainty. Incidentally, the sunspot cycles constitute a class of sunspot equilibria that are able to generate time series fluctuating in the recurrent but irregular way characteristic to some economic time series.