It is well known that the first welfare theorem can fail for
overlapping generations economies with private production and
unsecured debt. This paper demonstrates that
the reason for this
failure is that intermediation is modeled as a purely passive
coordination activity implemented by a Walrasian Auctioneer. When
intermediation is modeled instead as a contestable activity carried
out by a corporate intermediary
owned by consumer-shareholders and
operated in their interest, every equilibrium
is Pareto efficient.
In broader terms, these findings caution that the inefficiency
observed in standard modelings of overlapping generations economies
may not be the reflection of an intrinsic market failure. Rather,
the observed inefficiency could instead
be due to a fundamental
incompleteness in the model specification — the presumed
inability of
private agents to exploit the earnings opportunities
associated with incurring and forever rolling over debt.