Competitive Equilibria with Asymmetric Information

This paper studies competitive equilibria in economies where agents trade in markets for standardized, non-exclusive financial contracts, under conditions of asymmetric information (both of the moral hazard and the adverse selection type). The problems for the existence of competitive equilibria in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of economic theory 1999-07, Vol.87 (1), p.1-48
Main Authors: Bisin, Alberto, Gottardi, Piero
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adverse selection
Competition
Economic theory
Equilibrium
Moral hazard
Studies
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Summary:This paper studies competitive equilibria in economies where agents trade in markets for standardized, non-exclusive financial contracts, under conditions of asymmetric information (both of the moral hazard and the adverse selection type). The problems for the existence of competitive equilibria in this framework are identified, and shown to be essentially the same under different forms of asymmetric information. We then show that a “minimal” form of non-linearity of prices (a bid-ask spread, requiring only the possibility to separate buyers and sellers), and the condition that the aggregate return on the individual positions in each contract can be perfectly hedged in the existing markets, ensure the existence of competitive equilibria in the case of both adverse selection and moral hazard. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D50, D82.
ISSN:0022-0531
1095-7235
DOI:10.1006/jeth.1999.2514