Search arXiv⌕ Search

arXiv · 2609.03730

Proof of Steady-State Multiplicity in Aiyagari

Abstract

I provide the first analytic construction of a canonical Aiyagari economy exhibiting at least three steady states. Along the way, I provide new upper and lower bounds on the stationary capital supply for the case where the net return on saving is negative. I also give parameter restrictions that guarantee the existence of a steady state with a rental rate in the neighborhood of a remarkably simple number: the capital share times the depreciation rate.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Kieran James Walsh. 2026-09-03. Proof of Steady-State Multiplicity in Aiyagari. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.03730

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

Optimal Delegation in a Multidimensional World

We study a model of delegation in which a principal takes a multidimensional action and an agent has private information about a multidimensional state. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for an arbitrary mechanism to maximize the principal's expected payoff. A key step shows that a function is the indirect utility of an incentive-compatible mechanism if and only if it is convex and lies below the agent's full-discretion payoff. We apply our optimality conditions to convex delegation sets and characterize when a single budget optimally links decisions. Linking can preserve discretion even when separate delegation would eliminate it. Optimal linking can also require a nonconvex delegation set, even with uniformly distributed types. If the principal cares little about aligned decisions, every optimal mechanism randomizes: risk in an aligned decision provides incentives in the biased ones at little cost to her.

econ.TH↗

Renewable Natural Resources, Regime Shift and Hysteresis

Many of the world's renewable resources are in decline. Optimal harvests with smooth recruitment is well studied but in recent years, ecologists have concluded that tipping points in recruitment are common. Recruitment with a tipping point has low-fecundity below the tipping point and high-fecundity above. When the discounted value of high-fecundity is sufficiently high, there is a high-fecundity steady-state. This steady-state is stable but in some cases, small perturbations may result in large, temporary reductions in recruitment and harvests. Below the tipping point, a low-fecundity steady-state need not exist. When a low-fecundity steady-state does exist, there is an endogenous tipping (Skiba) point: below, harvests converge to the low-fecundity steady-state and above, an austere harvest policy transitions the renewable resource to high-fecundity recruitment. If there is hysteresis in recruitment, the high steady-state may not be stable. Moreover, if the high-/low-fecundity differential is large then following a downward perturbation, fecundity optimally remains low.

econ.TH↗

Constraint Preferences: Inattention and Aggregation

We study robust decision problems when individuals have maxmin preferences whose belief sets are neighborhoods around reference models, commonly known as "constraint preferences." We first show that a more disciplined form of rationally inattentive behavior is equivalent to the behavior implied by a subclass of constraint preferences. We then introduce an aggregation principle that requires collective beliefs to satisfy every individual's constraint. This requirement links collective beliefs to the information-processing technologies that generate individual constraints. Applications reveal how these technologies determine asset prices, when prediction-market prices become self-confirming, and how much dynamic mechanisms can reduce information rents.

econ.TH↗