Can a Representative-Agent Model Represent a Heterogeneous-Agent Economy

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: An, Sungbae; Chang, Yongsung; Kim, Sun-Bin
• 署名单位: Singapore Management University; University of Rochester; Yonsei University; Korea University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MACROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7707
• DOI: 10.1257/mac.1.2.29
• 发表日期: 2009
• 页码: 29-54
• 关键词: intertemporal substitution; business-cycle; real wages; LABOR

摘要

Accounting for observed fluctuations in aggregate employment, consumption, and real wage using the optimality conditions of a representative household requires preferences that are incompatible with economic priors. In order to reconcile theory with data, we construct a model with heterogeneous agents whose decisions are difficult to aggregate because of incomplete capital markets and the indivisible nature of labor supply. If we were to explain the model-generated aggregate time series using decisions of a stand-in household, such a household must have a nonconcave or unstable utility as is often found with the aggregate US data. (JEL E13, E24)