COWLES FOUNDATION FOR RESEARCH IN ECONOMICS
AT YALE UNIVERSITY

Box 208281
New Haven, CT 06520-8281

COWLES FOUNDATION DISCUSSION PAPER NO. 959

"The Price for the Widow's Cruse: Or the Value of an Infinitely Productive Asset"

Martin Shubik

October 1990

This paper considers two basic problems: The first is the necessity for introducing government money (as contrasted with individual credit) and an infinitely lived government in an overlapping generations economy. The second concerns the evaluation of the price of an infinitely productive asset in an economy without a natural discount factor.