Equilibrium Analysis in Behavioural One-Sector Growth Models

Daron Acemoglu and Martin Kaae Jensen

The Review of Economic Studies, 2024, vol. 91, issue 2, 599-640

Abstract: Rich behavioural biases, mistakes, and limits on rational decision-making are often thought to make equilibrium analysis much more intractable. We establish that this is not the case in the context of one-sector growth models such as Ramsey–Cass–Koopmans or Bewley–Aiyagari models. We break down the response of the economy to a change in the environment or policy into two parts: the direct response at the given (pre-tax) prices, and the equilibrium response which plays out as prices change. Our main result demonstrates that under weak regularity conditions, regardless of the details of behavioural preferences, mistakes and constraints on decision-making, the long-run equilibrium will involve a greater capital-labour ratio if and only if the direct response (from the corresponding consumption-saving model) involves an increase in aggregate savings. One implication of this result is that, from a qualitative point of view, behavioural biases matter for long-run equilibrium if and only if they change the direction of the direct response. We provide detailed illustrations of how this result can be applied and generate new insights using models of misperceptions, self-control and temptation, and naive and sophisticated quasi-hyperbolic discounting.

Keywords: Behavioural economics; Comparative statics; General equilibrium; Neoclassical growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/restud/rdad043 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
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:oup:restud:v:91:y:2024:i:2:p:599-640.

Access Statistics for this article

The Review of Economic Studies is currently edited by Thomas Chaney, Xavier d’Haultfoeuille, Andrea Galeotti, Bård Harstad, Nir Jaimovich, Katrine Loken, Elias Papaioannou, Vincent Sterk and Noam Yuchtman

More articles in The Review of Economic Studies from Review of Economic Studies Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().