Overlapping Generations: The First Jubilee

Overlapping Generations: The First Jubilee

Paul Samuelson’s (1958) overlapping generations model has turned 50. Seldom has so simple a model been so influential. Its “wow” factor, and the feeling of surprise at its originality and coolness have not paled with the years. The paper, in spite of its ripe age, still elicits wonder. Starting from the uncontroversial observation that “we live in a world where new generations are always coming...

Overlapping generations , intermediation , and the First Welfare Theorem

The First Welfare Theorem fails to hold for standard pure exchange overlapping generations economies because no agent exploits the profit opportunities which can arise from mediating intertemporal trade. This paper modifies the standard economy by introducing an optimizing corporate intermediary which distributes net earnings back to consumer-shareholders. The Pareto inefficient no-trade state,...

Overlapping Generations Models

The specific feature of the Overlapping Generations Model is that new cohorts are born in every period, live for a number of periods and die. Consequently, at any point in time, society is composed of individuals belonging to the different generations that are currently alive. Because of the demographic structure of the population, no trade involving individuals about to die is possible and hen...

Asset Bubbles and Overlapping Generations

Overlapping Generations Models with Immigration

In this work we develop overlapping generations models (OLG) which explicitly include immigration. In the following, we propose two general equilibrium models. In a first approach, we investigate the effect of a sudden variation in the number of immigrants on the host country to shed light on the welfare effects of immigration for the various generations of the host country’s population. Subseq...