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The Ideal Inflation Indexed Bond and Irving Fisher's Impatience Theory of Interest in an Overlapping Generations World

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Abstract

Irving Fisher long advocated inflation indexed bonds. I prove in the context of a multicommodity CAPM world that the best welfare improving bond pays the minimum money needed to achieve the same utility, and not the minimum needed to buy an ideal commodity bundle. Irving Fisher also developed and advocated the impatience theory of interest. But in OLG economies, the rate of interest is determined by population growth, not impatience. I reconcile this contradiction by proving that in stationary OLG economies with land, the interest rate at the unique steady state does depend on impatience. Indeed, the proposition that greater impatience creates higher interest rates holds more generally in OLG with land than in Fisher's two-period model.

Suggested Citation

  • John Geanakoplos, 2003. "The Ideal Inflation Indexed Bond and Irving Fisher's Impatience Theory of Interest in an Overlapping Generations World," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1429, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:1429
    Note: CFP 1111.
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Paul A. Samuelson, 1958. "An Exact Consumption-Loan Model of Interest with or without the Social Contrivance of Money," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66(6), pages 467-467.
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    4. Geanakoplos, John, 1990. "An introduction to general equilibrium with incomplete asset markets," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1-2), pages 1-38.
    5. Fisher, Irving, 1907. "The Rate of Interest," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number fisher1907.
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    8. John Geanakoplos & Martin Shubik, 1989. "The Capital Asset Pricing Model as a General Equilibrium with Incomplete Markets," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 913, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Impatience; Theory of interest; Inflation indexed bond; Konus index; Capital asset pricing; Efficiency; Overlapping generations; Land;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B22 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Macroeconomics
    • B23 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Econometrics; Quantitative and Mathematical Studies
    • B31 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought: Individuals - - - Individuals
    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D52 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Incomplete Markets
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

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