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A limited participation economy models the real-world phenomenon that some economic agents have access to more of the financial market than others. We prove the global existence of a Radner equilibrium with limited participation, where the agents have exponential preferences and derive utility from both running consumption and terminal wealth. Our analysis centers around a coupled quadratic backward stochastic differential equation (BSDE) system whose equations describe the economic agents' stochastic control solutions and equilibrium prices. We define a candidate equilibrium in terms of the BSDE system solution and prove through a verification argument that the candidate is a Radner equilibrium with limited participation. Finally, we prove that the BSDE system has a unique solution in S ∞ × bmo . This work generalises the model of Basak and Cuoco (Rev. Financ. Stud. 11:309–341, 1998) to allow a stock with a general dividend stream and agents with stochastic income streams and exponential preferences. We also provide an explicit example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the implications of correlation ambiguity for investor behaviors and asset prices. In our model, individuals' decision making incorporates both risk and ambiguity, and we demonstrate that limited participation arises from the rational decision by naïve investors to avoid correlation ambiguity. In equilibrium, the asset with lower quality generates positive excess returns. Comparative static analysis of the equilibrium result suggests that changes in the fraction of naïve investors and ambiguity level can alter equilibrium types and flight to quality phenomenon is observed. However, their impacts on asset prices are non-monotonic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate how market power or price impact of market makers affects the participation decisions of investors with ambiguity aversion. Limited participation exists because some investors are ambiguous about the asset fundamental, but the market power of market makers mitigates limited participation. As a result, when market makers become less competitive, the non-participation range decreases, while return volatility increases; thus, market makers and ambiguity-averse investors are better off, but investors with liquidity needs are worse off. However, the non-participation range and uninformed investors' welfare can increase or decrease when information is more asymmetric, depending on the importance of liquidity demand. • Market makers with market power induce higher market participation by investors with ambiguity aversion. • The return volatility increases with market makers' market power. • As market makers are less competitive, market makers and ambiguity-averse investors are better off, but investors with liquidity needs are worse off. • Information asymmetry can either increase or decrease the non-participation range and the uninformed investors' welfare, depending on the importance of liquidity demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We formulate a central bank's problem of selecting an optimal long-run inflation rate as the choice of a distorting tax by a planner who wishes to maximize discounted stationary utility for a heterogeneous population of infinitely lived households in an economy with constant aggregate income and public information. Households are segmented into agents who store value in currency alone and agents who have access to both currency and loans. We show that the optimum inflation rate is positive, because inflation reduces the value of the outside option for credit agents and raises their debt limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the empirical relevance of temptation and self-control using household-level data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey. We construct an infinite-horizon consumption-savings model that allows, but does not require, temptation and self-control in preferences. In the presence of temptation, a wealth-consumption ratio, in addition to consumption growth, becomes a determinant of the asset-pricing kernel, and the importance of this additional pricing factor depends on the strength of temptation. To identify the presence of temptation, we exploit an implication of the theory that a more tempted individual should be more likely to hold commitment assets such as individual retirement account (IRA) or 401(k) accounts. Our estimation provides empirical support for temptation preferences. Based on our estimates, we explore some quantitative implications of this class of preferences for capital accumulation in a neoclassical growth model and the welfare cost of the business cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks why monetary contractions have strong effects on the housing market. The paper presents a model with staggered housing adjustment in which monetary policy has real effects in the absence of any rigidity in producer pricing or wages. Limited participation in financial markets leads to a rise in the real mortgage rate following an increase in the nominal short rate. Since households must take on a mortgage to consume housing, the rise in the real interest rate reduces the share of residential investment in output. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An asset market segmentation model is constructed to study the distributional effects of monetary policy when economic individuals can choose means of payment among alternatives. In equilibrium, monetary policy has two distributional effects: a direct effect and an indirect effect through the choice of means of payment. When the government injects money, some purchase a greater variety of goods with cash whereas others purchase a greater variety of goods with credit. Credit can dampen fluctuations in consumption arising from monetary policy. The optimal money growth rate can be positive or negative. The Friedman rule is not optimal in general. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper models the liquidity effects after a contractionary open market operation in a framework that highlights the frictions of limited participation in financial markets and search frictions in labor markets. It is shown that Lucas rigidities, with the aid of labor market rigidities, could generate more persistent liquidity effects even in a context of flexible prices. In addition, the simulation results show that this adapted liquidity and labor search model does a reasonable good job in explaining the observed labor market dynamics in response to shocks of a plausible magnitude, and deliver substantial movements along a downward-sloping Beveridge curve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note considers gambles that take place even if only some-but not all-individuals agree to participate. I show that the bet cannot take place if it is commonly known how many individuals are willing to participate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our paper examines the impact of heterogeneous trading technologies for households on asset prices and the distribution of wealth. We distinguish between passive traders who hold fixed portfolios of stocks and bonds, and active traders who adjust their portfolios to changes in expected returns. To solve the model, we derive an optimal consumption sharing rule that does not depend on the trading technology, and we derive an aggregation result for state prices. This allows us to solve for equilibrium prices and allocations without having to search for market clearing prices in each asset market separately. We show that the fraction of total wealth held by active traders, not the fraction held by all participants, is critical for asset prices because only these traders respond to variation in state prices and hence absorb the residual aggregate risk created by non-participants. We calibrate the heterogeneity in trading technologies to match the equity premium and the risk-free rate. The calibrated model reproduces the skewness and kurtosis of the wealth distribution in the data. In contrast to existing asset pricing models with heterogeneous agents, our model matches the high volatility of returns and the low volatility of the risk-free rate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we document a 75 percent increase in stockholders’ share of aggregate labor income in the U.S. from 1962 to 2000 using data from Survey of Consumer Finances. Our decomposition of the increase in stockholders’ share of aggregate labor income documents that one half is due to the equi-proportional increase in participation and one quarter each is due to the non-proportional part of the changes in stockmarket participation and changes in the income distribution, respectively. The change due to the labor income distribution is driven entirely by the increase in the share of labor income accounted for by the top labor income decile. Using a simple model with limited stockmarket participation, we present a mechanism for how the increase in stockholders’ share of aggregate labor income has affected the ex ante equity premium (i.e. the discount rate applied to equity). The mechanism works through the composition of income of stockholders. The resulting decrease in the equity premium is 44 percent, which roughly coincides with the historical change in the post-1951 equity premium implied by the simple dividend growth model in Fama and French (2002). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the decreased volatility of U.S. macroeconomic variables starting in the 1980's in a model where monetary policy is affected by financial frictions. The model is estimated for postwar U.S. data with a break in 1981:3, allowing for changes in the policy rule, shock processes and financial frictions across subsamples. There is some evidence that changed monetary policy is more important to explain inflation stabilization, while "good luck" helps explain the increased stability in output. However, the results are most consistent with a decline in shock variances which was reinforced by a decrease in financial frictions, making the economy less vulnerable to shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following a contractionary monetary policy shock, the aggregate output decreases over time for six to eight quarters, while the real interest rate increases immediately and remains high for three quarters, which can hardly be replicated by models characterized by a standard consumption Euler equation. This paper adopts a segmented markets framework where some households are permanently excluded from financial markets. The aggregate output and the nominal interest rate are modeled as exogenous autoregressive processes, while the real interest rate is determined endogenously. For intermediate levels of market segmentation, the model is able to account for both the persistent decreasing path of the aggregate output and the persistent increase in the real interest rate which follow an unanticipated increase in the nominal interest rate. The sign, the size and the persistence of the responses of the real interest rate and the money growth rate are close to those in the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies optimal money growth in a cash-in-advance production economy with heterogeneity in patience levels and know-how. We show that the rate of deflation suggested by the Friedman rule is limited by the subjective discount rate of the most patient agent in the economy. The output distortion due to cash-in-advance constraints on firms can completely be eliminated by means of the Friedman rule If and only if firms are run by the most patient agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standard foreign exchange (FX) models with goods price stickiness and instantaneous asset market adjustments imply FX overshooting (), which can explain the forward bias anomaly.explained the anomaly via limited participation of FX speculators due to Sharpe ratios lower than equity market alternatives, which implies FX undershooting to interest differential shocks. I derive the time-series implications of overshooting and undershooting for the joint forward/spot FX dynamics in a vector error correction model. I use generalized impulse response analysis () to test those implications. All FX studied (pound, deutsch mark, French franc, yen, and Canadian dollar) have dynamics consistent with undershooting during the period from 1975 to 1998. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary. The purpose of this paper is to explore the implications of private money issue for the effects of monetary policy, for optimal policy, and for the role of fiat money. A locational model is constructed which gives an explicit account of the role for money and credit, and for limited financial market participation. When private money issue is prohibited, there is a liquidity effect as the result of a money injection from the central bank, but this effect goes away when private money is permitted. Private money issue changes dramatically the nature of optimal monetary policy. With private money, fiat currency is no longer used in transactions involving goods, but currency and central bank reserves play an important part in the clearing and settlement of private money returned for redemption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a two-country, two-good, two-currency overlapping generations model that features limited participation and costly state verification in the credit markets. The model is used to study the role of financial factors in the international transmission of business fluctuations, and to analyse whether the presence of credit market imperfections may have an important impact on the relative desirability of alternative exchange rate regimes. In the presence of informational frictions in credit markets, shocks to productivity are shown to have different channels of influence on the world economy under alternative exchange rate regimes. Therefore, real exchange rate variability depends on the nominal exchange rate regime. It is also shown that although a flexible exchange rate regime may insulate a country from the real shocks of other countries, such shocks may lead the country to attain higher expected welfare levels under a fixed exchange rate regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]