OPTIMALITY OF BARTER STEADY-STATES

In the present paper, the issue of the existence of optimal barter ste ady states is addressed in a stationary overlapping generations model with many commodities and many different long-lived consumers. A gener al characterization of the individual endowments leading to an optimal barter steady state is obtained. The result, which is a generalizatio n of Benveniste and Cass (1986), is obtained as a corollary of an unpu blished result of Cass (1982). (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All righ ts reserved.