The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics Online

We review the recent literature in macroeconomics that analyses Markov equilibria in dynamic general equilibrium model. After defining the Markov equilibrium concept we first summarize what is known about the existence and uniqueness of such equilibria in models where sequential equilibria can be obtained by solving a suitable social planner problem. We then discuss the existence problems of Markov equilibria in models where equivalence of equilibrium allocations and solutions to social planner problems cannot be established and review techniques the literature has developed to deal with the existence problem, as well as recent applications of these techniques in macroeconomics.