DP9080 The Evolution of Endogenous Business Cycles

Author(s):	Roger E A Farmer
Publication Date:	August 2012
Keyword(s):	indeterminacy, self-fulfilling propcheices, sunspots, unemployment
JEL(s):	B22, E20, E32
Programme Areas:	International Macroeconomics
Link to this Page:	cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=9080

This paper distinguishes between two kinds of Endogenous Business Cycle models, and discusses the evolution from first generation EBC1 models to second generation EBC2 models. I argue that EBC1 models, which display dynamic indeterminacy, are part of the evolution of modern macroeconomics that has classical roots dating back to the 1920s. EBC2 models, which display steady-state indeterminacy, are a more radical departure from the classical Real Business Cycle model; they represent a return to one of the most important ideas to emerge from Keynes? (1936) General Theory; that high involuntary unemployment can persist as part of the steady-state equilibrium of a market economy.