Macroeconomics Complementaries

本项目继续研究具有互补性的模型经济体的动态行为。这些模型的关键在于，一个主体的“活动”是经济中总体活动水平的递增函数。例如，在这种模型中，个别公司的生产或失业者为找工作而找工作取决于经济活动的总体水平。这些模型已经能够提供对理解商业周期、增长和金融互动的各种重要现象的见解。这些模型中出现的多重均衡造成了协调失败的可能性，因为经济可能会“卡在”一个较差的均衡上。没有一个单独行动的主体能够使经济走向一个理想的均衡结果。这与观察到的长期低经济活动是一致的，比如大萧条时期，经济似乎转向了另一种低经济活动均衡。这项资助允许研究者扩展过去的理论和实证工作，将重点放在20世纪20年代和30年代汽车和相关部门的机器更换和季节性生产模式的变化上。在这一时期，汽车制造商经历的最有趣的方面是罗斯福政府和汽车制造商协会在20世纪30年代初的努力，将停工期从年底推迟到夏末。这可能是协调失败的一个例子。汽车生产商都在12月份同步进行了装备更新，但在今年早些时候进行装备更新将使生产更加平滑。该项目还将研究在不完全竞争经济体的商业周期过程中进入和退出的重要性。最后一个工作领域是研究银行挤兑的总体影响和设计最佳存款保险计划的问题。

This project continues research on the dynamic behavior of model economies with complementarities. The key to these models is that the "activity" of one agent is an increasing function of the aggregate level of activity in the economy. For example, in such models production by individual firms or search for jobs by the unemployed for jobs depends on the overall level of economic activity. These models have been able to provide insights into a variety of phenomena important to understanding business cycles, growth and financial interactions. The multiplicity of equilibria that arise in these models creates the possibility of coordination failures in that the economy can become "stuck" at an inferior equilibrium. No single agent, acting alone, can move the economy to a preferred equilibrium outcome. This is consistent with observed, prolonged periods of low activity, such as the Great Depression, where it appears that the economy shifted to an alternative low activity equilibrium. This grant permits the investigator to extend past theoretical and empirical work to focus on machine replacement and changes in the seasonal pattern of production in the automobile and related sectors during the 1920s and 1930s. The most interesting aspect of the automobile producers experience during this period was an effort by the Roosevelt Administration and the Automobile Manufacturers Association, in the early 1930s to move the shutdown period for retooling from the end of the year to the late summer. This could be an example of a coordination failure. Automobile producers all synchronized retooling in December, but retooling earlier in the year would permit greater production smoothing. The project will also study the importance of entry and exit over the course of business cycles in imperfectly competitive economies. The last area of work concerns the study of the aggregate implications of bank runs and the problem of designing optimal deposit insurance schemes.