Could inflated credit ratings that provide new information have adverse ex-ante real effects? If so, why? In a debt-rollover game featuring a feedback loop, we show that when the risky projects have high upside returns, the credit rating agency’s (CRA) ex-ante real effects are negative, despite of its positive informational effects. This arises from the CRAs feedback effects: it strategically a...

We study consumer liquidity in a general equilibrium model where the friction is the nonpledgeability of future income. Liquidity helps to overcome the absence of a double coincidence of wants. Consumers over-hoard liquidity and the resulting competitive equilibrium is constrained inefficient. Fiscal policy following a large negative shock can increase ex ante welfare. If the government cannot ...

Pecuniary externalities have regained the interest of researchers as they seek policy interventions and regulations to remedy externality-induced distortions, e.g., balance sheet effects, amplifiers and fire sales. We show how bundling, exclusivity and additional markets internalize these pecuniary externalities; ex ante competition can achieve a constrained-efficient allocation. We cover a lar...

This paper develops a non-linear DSGE model to assess the interaction between ex-post interventions in credit markets and the build-up of risk ex ante. During a systemic crisis, bailouts to the financial sector relax balance sheet constraints and accelerate the economic recovery. Ex ante, the anticipation of such bailouts leads to an increase in risk-taking, making the economy more vulnerable t...

This paper develops a non-linear DSGE model to assess the interaction between ex-post interventions in credit markets and the build-up of risk ex ante. During a systemic crisis, bailouts to the financial sector relax balance sheet constraints and accelerate the economic recovery. Ex ante, the anticipation of such bailouts leads to an increase in risk-taking, making the economy more vulnerable t...

In this paper, we study consumption decisions under risk assuming a prioritarian social welfare function, namely a concave transformation of individual utility functions. Under standard assumptions, there is always more current consumption under ex ante prioritarianism than under utilitarianism. Thus, a concern for equity (in the ex ante prioritarian sense) means less concern for the risky futu...

The most widely used updating rule for non-additive probabilities is the Dempster-Schafer rule. Schmeidler and Gilboa have developed a model of decision making under uncertainty based on non-additive probabilities, and in their paper "Updating Ambiguous Beliefs" they justify the Dempster-Schafer rule based on a maximum likelihood procedure. This note shows in the context of Schmeidler-Gilboa pr...

This paper develops a novel positive model of informal contracting in which rewards and punishments are not determined by an ex ante optimal plan but instead express the ex post moral sentiments of the arbitrating party. We consider a subjective performance evaluation problem in which a principal can privately assess the contribution of an agent to the welfare of a broader group. In the absence...

Economics; he would like to thank that institution for its hospitality. Abstract We view a contract as a list of outcomes. Ex ante, the parties commit not to consider outcomes not on the list, i.e., these are " ruled out ". Ex post, they freely bargain over outcomes on the list, i.e., the contract specifies no mechanism to structure their choice; in this sense outcomes on the list are not " rul...

This paper summarises the standard account of the economic calculation debate, the modern Austrian reinterpretation of the debate based on the centrality of tacit knowledge and discovery, and a neglected third strand in the historical debate, Dobb's insistence on the uncertainty associated with atomistic decision making and the need for ex ante planning. It then draws some lessons for socialist...