The revelation of information and self-fulfilling beliefs

At a Rational Expectations Equilibrium (REE), individuals are assumed to know the map from states to prices. This hypothesis has two components, that agents agree (consensus) and that they have point expectations (degeneracy). We consider economies where agents' beliefs are described by a joint distribution on states and prices, and these beliefs are fulfilled at equilibrium. Beliefs are self-fulfilling if every price in the support of the distribution is an equilibrium price. The corresponding equilibria are Beliefs Equilibria (BE). The further restriction that agents have the same beliefs results in Common Beliefs Equilibria (CBE). We study the relationship between BE, CBE, and REE, thus isolating the role of consensus and of degeneracy in achieving rational expectations. (C) 1997 Academic Press.