Can there be a General Equilibrium Liquidity Preference Demand for Money?

Abstract

In "Liquidity Preference as Behavior Towards Risk," Tobin suggests that risk aversion and expected utility maximization can provide a rigorous foundation for an equilibrium demand for money. In Tobin's model, money plays a risk reducing role in individual portfolios. This note considers whether a general equilibrium stochastic model can produce equilibrium yield distributions that allow money to play that role if money does not appear directly as an argument in the utility or production functions of the economy. The model examined, a stochastic production variant of Samuelson's model of overlapping generations, cannot produce such yield distributions.

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