Wealth Preference and Rational Bubbles

Jean-Baptiste Michau, Yoshiyasu Ono and Matthias Schlegl

ISER Discussion Paper from Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University

Abstract: We consider a neoclassical economy where households derive utility from holding wealth. We show that, under some conditions, there can be rational bubbles. Hence, we provide a microfoundation for bubbles that relies on a frictionless infinite-horizon economy without any heterogeneity across households. While our bubbly equilibria are very similar to those obtained by Tirole (1985) in an overlapping generation economy, the underlying economics is different. Turning to public debt, we show that Ponzi schemes can be sustainable. Hence, in general, the limit on the accumulation of public debt by the government is not given by its no-Ponzi condition but, instead, by the representative household's transversality condition. The Ricardian equivalence must hold in any of our equilibria. Finally, in the presence of money, the real equilibrium structure of the economy remains unchanged. We carefully investigate the effects of helicopter drops of money on the possibility of Ponzi schemes and of speculative hyperinflation or deflation.

Date: 2018-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge, nep-knm, nep-mac and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.iser.osaka-u.ac.jp/library/dp/2018/DP1035.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: Wealth preference and rational bubbles (2023)
Working Paper: Wealth Preference and Rational Bubbles (2018)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:dpr:wpaper:1035

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ISER Discussion Paper from Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Librarian ().