The most interesting features of evolutionary games, besides the ability to select among multiple Nash equilibria, are their dynamic properties. These dynamic properties are best displayed in a stochastic setting. In the usual deterministic setting, dynamics disappear in the long run (or they are stable orbits that repeat themselves). Studying evolutionary dynamics in a stochastic setting has a...

We propose a new business cycle theory. Firms need to randomize over firing or keeping workers who have performed poorly in the past, in order to give them an ex-ante incentive to exert effort. Firms have an incentive to coordinate the outcome of their randomizations, as coordination allows them to load the firing probability on states of the world in which it is costlier for workers to become ...

I. Why is it that, in capitalist economies, aggregate variables undergo repeated fluctuations about trend, all of essentially the same character? Prior to Keynes’ General Theory, the resolution of this question was regarded as one of the main outstanding challenges to economic research, and attempts to meet this challenge were called business cycle theory. Moreover, among the interwar business ...

If the benchmark model without frictions can replicate the stylized facts of the business cycle, the cycles may be just an efficient phenomenon generated by markets in response to certain shocks, such as, for example, productivity shocks. Furthermore, if markets are complete and individuals can diversify risk, Lucas (1987) calculated the welfare cost of the aggregate fluctuations to be negligible.

This paper examines an overlapping generations version of the Shapley-Shubik market game. We show existence of equilibria for the simple one commodity model and analyze the dynamics of the equilibrium trajectories generated in the model. Because of the non-linearities generated by strategic interaction of agents in the model, we find that complex and chaotic equilibrium dynamics are possible in...

This paper develops an empirical macroeconomic framework to analyze the relationship between major political disruptions and business cycles of a country. We combine a new dataset of political revolutions (mass domestic political campaigns to remove dictators and juntas) across the world since 1960, with coup data and traditional macro data (of output, investment, trade, inflation and exchange ...

A. Topics and Tools ............................................................................ 1 B. Walrasian vs. Keynesian Explanations of Business Cycles ........................ 3 Why do we have multiple theories of business cycles? ....................................................... 3 Classification of business-cycle models ................................................................

The Real Business Cycle (RBC) research program has grown spectacularly over the last decade, as its concepts and methods have diffused into mainstream macroeconomics. Yet, there is increasing skepticism that technology shocks are a major source o f business fluctuations. This chapter exposits the basic RBC model and shows that it requires large technology shocks to produce realistic business cy...

We studied the cyclical and growth properties of Brazilian per capita output from 1850 to 2000. Contrary to the experience of some developed countries, we did not find large changes in the volatility of per capita output. However, we obtained evidence that the oscillations in economic activity became more persistent after World War II.

This paper presents two dynamic models of the economy in which credit constraints arise because creditors cannot force debtors to repay debts unless the debts are secured by collateral. The credit system becomes a powerful propagation mechanism by which the effects of shocks persist and amplify through the interaction between collateral values, borrowers' net worth and credit limits. In particu...