Macroeconomics Complementaries

该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，一个代理人的“活动”是经济活动总水平的递增函数。例如，在这样的模型中，个别公司的生产或失业者寻找工作取决于经济活动的总体水平。这些模型能够提供对各种现象的洞察，这些现象对于理解商业周期、增长和金融互动非常重要。这些模型中出现的多种均衡造成了协调失败的可能性，因为经济可能会陷入较低的均衡。任何单独行动的力量都不能将经济推向理想的均衡结果。这与观察到的长期低活动时期是一致的，例如大萧条，在大萧条期间，经济似乎转向了另一种低活动均衡。这笔赠款使研究人员能够扩展过去的理论和经验工作，将重点放在20世纪20年代和30年代汽车和相关行业生产的季节性模式的更换和变化上。在此期间，汽车生产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年代初的一项努力，将重新装备的停工期从年底推迟到夏末。这可能是协调失败的一个例子。去年12月，所有汽车生产商都同步进行了改装，但今年早些时候的改装将允许更大程度的生产平稳。该项目还将研究在不完全竞争的经济体中，进入和退出在商业周期过程中的重要性。最后一个工作领域涉及对银行挤兑的总体影响的研究，以及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.