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Abstract We consider the inequality $$f \geqslant f\star f$$ for real functions in $$L^1({\mathbb{R}}^d)$$ where $$f\star f$$ denotes the convolution of $$f$$ with itself. We show that all such functions $$f$$ are nonnegative, which is not the case for the same inequality in $L^p$ for any $$1 < p \leqslant 2$$, for which the convolution is defined. We also show that all solutions in $$L^1({\mathbb{R}}^d)$$ satisfy $$\int _{{\mathbb{R}}^{\textrm{d}}}f(x)\ \textrm{d}x \leqslant \tfrac 12$$. Moreover, if $$\int _{{\mathbb{R}}^{\textrm{d}}}f(x)\ \textrm{d}x = \tfrac 12$$, then $$f$$ must decay fairly slowly: $$\int _{{\mathbb{R}}^{\textrm{d}}}|x| f(x)\ \textrm{d}x = \infty $$, and this is sharp since for all $r< 1$, there are solutions with $$\int _{{\mathbb{R}}^{\textrm{d}}}f(x)\ \textrm{d}x = \tfrac 12$$ and $$\int _{{\mathbb{R}}^{\textrm{d}}}|x|^r f(x)\ \textrm{d}x <\infty $$. However, if $$\int _{{\mathbb{R}}^{\textrm{d}}}f(x)\ \textrm{d}x =: a < \tfrac 12$$, the decay at infinity can be much more rapid: we show that for all $$a<\tfrac 12$$, there are solutions such that for some $$\varepsilon>0$$, $$\int _{{\mathbb{R}}^{\textrm{d}}}e^{\varepsilon |x|}f(x)\ \textrm{d}x < \infty $$.