98 research outputs found
Bonds, Not Bailouts, For Too Big to Fail Banks
No full textSteven Gjerstad and Vernon L. Smith discuss the phenomenon of bailing out banks that are too big to fail , which continues six years since the beginning of the economic downturn. Steven Gjerstad and Vernon L. Smith discuss the phenomenon of bailing out banks that are too big to fail , which continues six years since the beginning of the economic downturn
Heading Off Bubble Would Have Been Unacceptable
No full textVernon Smith and Steven Gjerstad discussthe economic and political forces that lead to economic recessions and depressions, and particularly the Great Recession that began in late 2007 and the housing bubble
Market Dynamics in Edgeworth Exchange
No full textEdgeworth exchange is the fundamental general equilibrium model, yet equilibrium predications and theories of price adjustment for this model remain untested. This paper reports an experimental test of Edgeworth exchange which demonstrates that prices and allocations converge sharply to the competitive equilibrium. Price convergence is evaluated with the tatonnement model, interpreted as a disequilibrium model of across- period price adjustment. Subsequently, the extent of within-period adjustment is compared to that of across-period adjustment. Since most observed price adjustment occurs within trading periods, price adjustment data is evaluated with two disequilibrium models of within- period trades. These models are the Geometric Mean model, which is formulated in this paper, and the Hahn process (Hahn and Negishi [1962]). Price dynamics from experiment sessions fit the Geometric Mean model better than the Hahn process, and in addition, the Geometric Mean model provides direction for development of an Edgeworth exchange bargaining model.Competitive equilibrium, disequilibrium dynamics, double auction, Edgeworth exchange, experimental economics, exchange economy, Hahn process, market dynamics
Rethinking Housing Bubbles: The Role Of Household And Bank Balance Sheets In Modeling Economic Cycles
No full textBalance sheet crises, in which the prices of widely held and highly leveraged assets collapse, pose distinctive economic challenges. An understanding of their causes and consequences is only recently developing, and there is no agreement on effective policy responses. From backgrounds in experimental economics, Steven Gjerstad and Nobel laureate Vernon L. Smith examine events that led to and resulted from the recent U.S. housing bubble and collapse, as a case study in the formation and propagation of balance sheet crises. They then examine all previous downturns in the U.S. economy, including the Great Depression, and document substantive differences between the recurrent features of economic cycles and financial crises and the beliefs that public officials hold about them, especially within the Federal Reserve System. They conclude with an examination of similar events in other countries and assess alternative strategies to contain financial crises and to recover from them
Price Dynamics in an Exchange Economy
No full textThe pure exchange model is the foundation of the neoclassical theory of value, yet equilibrium predictions and models of price adjustment for this model remained untested prior to the experiment reported in this paper. With the exchange economy replicated several times, prices and allocations converge sharply to the competitive equilibrium in continuous double auction (CDA) trading. Convergence is evaluated by comparing the extent of price adjustment within each market replication (or trading period) to the extent of adjustment across trading periods: most observed price adjustment occurs within trading periods, so price adjustment data are evaluated with the Hahn process model (Hahn and Negishi [1962]), which is a disequilibrium model of within-period trades. Estimation demonstrates that the model is consistent with observed price paths within each period of the exchange economy. The model is augmented with an additional assumption – based on observations from this experiment – that the initial trade price in period t+1 is randomly drawn from the interval between the minimum and maximum trade prices in period t. The estimated within-period adjustment rule, combined with this across-period adjustment rule, generates price paths similar to data from an experiment session.Competitive equilibrium, disequilibrium dynamics, continuous double auction, experimental economics, exchange economy, Hahn process, neoclassical theory of value, tatonnement, unit root tests
Individual Rationality and Market Efficiency
No full textThe demonstration by Smith [1962] that prices and allocations quickly converge to the competitive equilibrium in the continuous double auction (CDA) was one of the first – and remains one of the most important results in experimental economics. His initial experiment, subsequent market experiments, and models of price adjustment and exchange have added considerably to our knowledge of how markets reach equilibrium, and how they respond to disruptions. Perhaps the best known model of exchange in CDA market experiments is the random behavior in the “zero-intelligence” (ZI) model by Gode and Sunder [1993]. They conclude that even without trader rationality the CDA generates efficient allocations and “convergence of transaction prices to the proximity of the theoretical equilibrium price,” provided only that agents meet their budget constraints. We demonstrate that – by any reasonable measure – prices don’t converge in their simulations. Their budget constraint requires that a buyer’s currency never exceeds her value for the commodity, which is an unnatural restriction. Their conclusion that market efficiency results from the structure of the CDA independent of traders’ profit seeking behavior rests on their claim that the constraints that they impose are a part of the market institution, but this is not so. We show that they in effect impose individual rationality, which is an aspect of agents' behavior. Researchers on learning in markets have been misled by their interpretation of the ZI simulations, with deleterious effects on the debate on market adjustment processes.Bounded rationality; double auction; exchange economy; experimental economics; market experiment; "zero intelligence" model
Gross domestic product and its components in recessions
No full textThe recent economic crisis – already deservedly labeled the ‘great recession’ – continues to plague the health of the economy as a whole and has motivated us to probe its characteristic features and compare it to the typical economic downturn. Events during the boom and crash have been sharply delineated, progressing from (1) an unprecedented housing price bubble from 1997 to 2006, (2) rapid house price decline beginning early in 2007, (3) freezing of credit markets in August 2007, (4) rapid declines in equities prices and economic output by the middle of 2008, and (5) deterioration of the financial system in 2008 and an aggressive and unprecedented Federal Reserve intervention in the fall of 2008. This sequence of events has provided a fresh perspective with which to examine past economic cycles, and, we believe, is likely to change how economists, policy makers, investors, and others think about monetary policy, housing cycles, and business cycles. We find that eleven of the most recent fourteen economic downturns in the U.S. – from the great depression that began in 1929 to the great recession starting in late 2007 – were led by declines in housing investment. In these eleven downturns, housing investment declined before any other major component of GDP and its total decline before and during the recession was larger in percentage terms than the decline in any other major sector. In the 1945 recession – one of the three recessions in which housing was not implicated – national defense expenditures fell while all major components of private expenditure rose. The other two – in 1937-38 and 2001 – resulted primarily from declines in non-residential fixed investment that preceded and exceeded declines in any other major component of GDP. Figure 1 shows the percentage of GDP contributed by housing expenditures over the past 81 years. Although housing is not a large component of GDP – which may explain its limited role in accounts of recessions – it is volatile, it has declined before almost every recession, it has rarely declined substantially without a recession following soon afterward, and the extent of its decline emerges as a good predictor of the depth and duration of the recession that follows.2 In addition to its role as a leading indicator, and its volatility over the business cycle, housing investment has recovered faster than any other sector of the economy in every recession since 1921, with the single exception of the 1980 recession, which lasted only 12 months.
The Edgeworth exchange formulation of bargaining models and market experiments
No full textWe construct Edgeworth exchange economies equivalent to demand and supply environments typically used in bargaining models and market experiments. This formulation clearly delineates environment, institution, and behavior for these models and experiments. To illustrate, we examine results by Gode and Sunder, who simulate random behavior in a double auction and argue that this institution leads to an efficient allocation, even in the absence of rationality. We use the Edgeworth exchange representation of their economic environment to demonstrate that they model individually rational behavior, and show that their model is a special case of theoretical results by Hurwicz, Radner, and Reiter.Double auction, Market experiment, Edgeworth exchange, Bounded rationality
Book Review – Rethinking Housing Bubbles
No full textReview of the book titled 'Rethinking Housing Bubbles
The Role of Household and Bank Balance Sheets in Modeling Economic Cycles' by Steven D. Gjerstad and Vernon L. Smith. Published by Cambridge University Press in May 2014
Book Review – Rethinking Housing Bubbles
No full textReview of the book titled 'Rethinking Housing Bubbles
The Role of Household and Bank Balance Sheets in Modeling Economic Cycles' by Steven D. Gjerstad and Vernon L. Smith. Published by Cambridge University Press in May 2014
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