Enduring Relationships in an Economy with Capital and Private Information

Aubhik Khan, Latchezar Popov and B Ravikumar

No 2020-034, Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Abstract: We study efficient risk sharing in a model where agents operate linear production technologies with private information about idiosyncratic productivity. Capital is the sole factor of production, and accumulable. We establish a time-invariant, one-to-one mapping between the capital allocated to an agent and his lifetime utility entitlement. The mapping implies properties that are distinct from those in private-information endowment models. In contrast to the endowment model, the value of the risk-sharing arrangement in our model always remains above autarky value, so there is no need for long-term commitment. In our model, there are no net transfers each period across individuals, on average. This allows us to decentralize the efficient allocation into one-period insurance contracts that exhibit two-sided lack of commitment. Furthermore, while the efficient allocation implies increasing dispersion of lifetime utility entitlements and consumption, this need not lead to declines in individual consumption. When the technology is sufficiently productive, all individuals experience consumption growth.

Keywords: Efficiency; Private information; Capital accumulation; Commitment; Immiseration; One-period contract (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D30 D52 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 52 pages
Date: 2020-09, Revised 2020-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cta, nep-dge, nep-ore and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://s3.amazonaws.com/real.stlouisfed.org/wp/2020/2020-034.pdf Full Text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Enduring Relationships in an Economy with Capital and Private Information (2012)
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:fip:fedlwp:88818

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

DOI: 10.20955/wp.2020.034

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Scott St. Louis ().