Active Intermediation in Overlapping Generations Economies with Production and Unsecured Debt

Why does the First Welfare Theorem fail in standard overlapping generations economies with production, such as Diamond (AER, 1965) and Tirole (Econometrica, 1985)? This study argues that the reason for this failure can be attributed to the passive intermediation role played by the Walrasian Auctioneer in this models. Specifically, the study demonstrates that when intermediation is instead modeled as a contestable activity carried out by corporate intermediaries owned by consumer-shareholders and operated in their interest, every equilibrium is Pareto efficient. Annotated pointers to related work can be accessed here: http://www.econ.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/dehome.htm