Produce or Speculate? Asset Bubbles, Occupational Choice and Efficiency
Pierre Cahuc and
Edouard Challe
No 4630, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
Abstract:
We study the macroeconomic effects of rational asset bubbles in an overlapping-generations economy where asset trading requires specialized intermediaries and where agents freely choose between working in the production or in the financial sector. Frictions in the market for deposits create rents in the financial sector that affect workers' choice of occupation. When rents are large, the private gains associated with trading asset bubbles may lead too many workers to become speculators, thereby causing rational bubbles to lose their efficiency properties. Moreover, if speculation can be carried out by skilled labor only, then asset bubbles displace skilled workers away from the productive sector and raise income and consumption inequalities.
Keywords: dynamic efficiency; occupational choice; rational bubbles (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E22 E44 G21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2009-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)
Published - published in: International Economic Review, 2012, 53 (4), 1005-1035.
Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp4630.pdf (application/pdf)
Related works:
Journal Article: PRODUCE OR SPECULATE? ASSET BUBBLES, OCCUPATIONAL CHOICE, AND EFFICIENCY (2012) 
Working Paper: Produce or speculate? Asset bubbles, occupational choice and efficiency (2010) 
Working Paper: Produce or Speculate? Asset Bubbles, Occupational Choice and Efficiency (2009) 
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:iza:izadps:dp4630
Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().