Recent history suggests that many boom-bust cycles are naturally driven by linkages between the credit market and asset prices. Additionally, new structured securities have been developed, e.g., MBS, CDOs, and CDS, which have acted as instruments of risk transfer. We show that there is a certain non-robustness in the pricing of these instruments and we create a model in which their role in the ...

In this global world many firms present a complex shareholding structure with indirect participation, such that it may become difficult to assess a firm’s controllers. Furthermore, if there are numerous dominant shareholders, the control can be shared between them. Determining who has the most influence often is a difficult task. To measure this influence, game theory allows modeling voting gam...

This paper analyses the equilibrium dynamics of exploitation and class in general accumulation economies with population growth, technical change, and bargaining by adopting a novel computational approach. First, the determinants of the emergence and persistence of exploitation and class are investigated, and the role of labour-saving technical change and, even more importantly, power is highli...

We study the relationship between growth and variability in a DSGE model with nominal rigidities and growth driven by learning-by-doing. We show that this relationship may be positive or negative depending on the impulse source of fluctuations A key role is also played by the Frisch elasticity of labour supply and by institutional features of the labour market. Our general findings are that mon...

In a life-cycle model, we calculate the contribution of the generosity of unemployment insurance (UI) on the unemployment rates in Canada and the U.S. The model predicts a 0.81% difference in unemployment rates (one third of the actual difference) in these countries. Social welfare improves if the benefit ratio increases from 45 percent to 55 percent of the working income. Savings drop and aver...

Environmental problems, such as climate change, have great uncertainties. Current expectations are that uncertainties about climate change will be resolved quickly. We examine this hypothesis theoretically and computationally. We consider Bayesian learning about the relationship between greenhouse gas levels and global mean temperature changes, a key uncertainty. Learning is non-trivial because...

We state conditions for existence and uniqueness of equilibria in dynamic microeconomic models with an infinity of locally and globally interacting agents. Agents face repeated discrete choice problems. Their utility depends on the actions of some designated neighbors and the average choice throughout the whole population. We show that the dynamics on the level of aggregate behavior can be desc...

Technological Innovation, Financial Fragility and Complex Dynamics In this paper we suggest a scaling approach to business cycles. We develop a heterogeneous interacting agents (HIAs) model that replicates well known industrial dynamics stylized facts, as the power law distribution of firms’ size and the Laplace distribution of firms’ growth rates. In particular, the power law is a persistent b...

In a homogeneous jury, in which each vote is correct with the same probability, and each pair of votes correlates with the same correlation coefficient, there exists a correlation-robust voting quota, such that the probability of a correct verdict is independent of the correlation coefficient. For positive correlation, an increase in the correlation coefficient decreases the probability of a co...

The aim of this paper is determination of an optimal policy rule for Iranian economy from an Islamic perspective. This study draws on an Islamic instrument known as the Musharakah contract to design a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model. In this model the interest rate is no longer considered as a monetary policy instrument and the focus is on the impact of economic shocks on the Dynam...