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Our study, using statistical methods, provides empirical evidence to support the hypothesis that in order to get as close as possible to “human scale development”, as proposed by Max-Neef and colleagues in 1986 (English version 1991), we need to get as close as possible to the microeconomic ideal of so-called perfect competition, a situation in which many small and medium-sized enterprises compete with each other, while the GDP growth rate does not seem to be directly related to development. The ideal of “perfect competition” is part of the repertoire of classical economic theory. Few adherents of classical economic theory manage to build a bridge between economic theory and wellbeing when wellbeing is defined in terms of fundamental human needs, as Max-Neef & colleagues have done in their Human Scale Development approach. On the other hand, the adherents of Max Neef’s theory would, at first sight, usually not agree with the assumption, proven in our paper, that competitive markets are a way to get closer to human scale development, i.e. development where people can best satisfy fundamental human needs. Our paper tries to help bring both positions together.

More than 20 years have passed since the first company introduced drug-eluting stent (DES) in 2002, but competing companies still have improved their DESs under regulatory approval. This study aimed to investigate the criteria for interventional cardiologists performing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in selecting a DES. From 10 April 2023, to 30 April 2023, 3,422 cardiologists were requested to complete a questionnaire, of whom 126 responded to the survey. Overall, 86.5% of the respondents used Xience cobalt-chromium everolimus-eluting stent (Xience) in > 10% of PCI procedures. For Xience, brand loyalty and calcified lesions were important independent variables for the DES selection criteria. Ultimaster sirolimus-eluting stent (Ultimaster) was not affected by the clinical data delivered by the company, whereas the respondents were shown to seek support for their activities from the Ultimaster supplier. The relationship with the company and/or sales representative and the planned surgical procedure affected the use of Coroflex ISAR NEO sirolimus-eluting polymer-free stent. Patient background and lesion characteristics had little impact on the DES selection criteria, suggesting that DES performance has already reached its physical limitations to the extent that respondents may not value further improvements in performance or characteristics of DES. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a simple model of division of labor under perfect competition. The model shows under that the division of labor is compatible with perfectly competitive markets if coordination costs are increasing with the number of teams. We also show under what conditions interior solutions for the division of labor exist under imperfect competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perfect competition can be approximated in an environment with differentiated goods, heterogeneous firms, and frictions of trading. This paper considers an environment where sellers sell differentiated goods to buyers, and frictions of trading are represented by the buyers having incomplete consideration sets of the sellers in the market. Besides selling differentiated products, some sellers are more “prominent” and so are present in a larger number of buyers’ consideration sets. However, despite these imperfections, as the average number of sellers in the buyers’ consideration sets expands, the sellers’ market power vanishes and the equilibrium of the market approximates competitive conditions.

We consider uncertain robust electricity market equilibrium problems including transmission and generation investments. Electricity market equilibrium modeling has a long tradition but is, in most of the cases, applied in a deterministic setting in which all data of the model are known. Whereas there exist some literature on stochastic equilibrium problems, the field of robust equilibrium models is still in its infancy. We contribute to this new field of research by considering Γ -robust electricity market equilibrium models on lossless DC networks with transmission and generation investments. We state the nominal market equilibrium problem as a mixed complementarity problem as well as its variational inequality and welfare optimization counterparts. For the latter, we then derive a Γ -robust formulation and show that it is indeed the counterpart of a market equilibrium problem with robustified player problems. Finally, we present two case studies to gain insights into the general effects of robustification on electricity market models. In particular, our case studies reveal that the transmission system operator tends to act more risk-neutral in the robust setting, whereas generating firms clearly behave more risk-averse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The market failures approach (MFA) to business ethics argues that economic theory regarding the efficient workings of a market can generate normative prescriptions for managerial behaviour. It argues that actions that inhibit Pareto optimal solutions are immoral. However, the approach fails to identify goods that should be regulated or prohibited from the market, something common to the moral limits to markets (MLM) approach to business ethics. There are, however, numerous assumptions underlying Paretian efficiency, including some about the preferences of market participants. Trade in some goods violates some of these assumptions, and so these goods are morally suspect and can be understood to indicate that the market for these goods is not moral. This creates grounds sufficient for regulating, and possibly prohibiting, these goods. To help determine whether it is then necessary to regulate the goods, I propose a supplementary economic analysis to ascertain why an assumption regarding a particular preference is being violated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study minimal conditions for competitive behavior with few agents. We adapt a price-quantity strategic market game to the indivisible commodity environment commonly used in double auction experiments, and show that all Nash equilibrium outcomes with active trading are competitive if and only if there are at least two buyers and two sellers willing to trade at every competitive price. Unlike previous formulations, this condition can be verified directly by checking the set of competitive equilibria. In laboratory experiments, the condition we provide turns out to be enough to induce competitive results, and the Nash equilibrium appears to be a good approximation for market outcomes. Subjects, although possessing limited information, are able to act as if complete information were available in the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by examples from the energy sector, we consider market equilibrium problems (MEPs) involving players with nonconvex strategy spaces or objective functions, where the latter are assumed to be linear in market prices. We propose an algorithm that determines if an equilibrium of such an MEP exists and that computes an equilibrium in case of existence. Three key prerequisites have to be met. First, appropriate bounds on market prices have to be derived from necessary optimality conditions of some players. Second, a technical assumption is required for those prices that are not uniquely determined by the derived bounds. Third, nonconvex optimization problems have to be solved to global optimality. We test the algorithm on well-known instances from the power and gas literature that meet these three prerequisites. There, nonconvexities arise from considering the transmission system operator as an additional player besides producers and consumers who, e.g. switches lines or faces nonlinear physical laws. Our numerical results indicate that equilibria often exist, especially for the case of continuous nonconvexities in the context of gas market problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes two short experiments which can be run back-to-back in a microeconomic principles course. In both experiments, student groups run hypothetical firms and compete to maximize profit. The first experiment assumes perfect competition and teaches students to follow the production and shutdown rules when firms are price-takers. The second experiment allows students to set their own production level and price in an oligopoly market. Students apply cost structure, firm choice, and market structure theory. Each experiment takes about thirty minutes and can be implemented in an in-person, online, or hybrid course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article re‐examines the optimality of tax smoothing and optimal inflation persistence in the context of monetary models with cash constraints where the Friedman rule is not optimal. I consider distortionary taxes on either consumption or labor income. As a consequence of the non‐optimality of the Friedman rule, the Ramsey‐optimal policy features a tax rate volatility that is orders of magnitude larger than the cornerstone tax‐smoothing result of the standard Ramsey literature. The Ramsey results also imply an optimal inflation rate that is much more persistent than the existing results. When all consumption goods are subject to a cash constraint, purposeful tax and interest rate volatilities are used to smooth wedges. Therefore, in contrast to the widely accepted view in the literature that in RBC models wedge smoothing implies tax smoothing, this paper shows that this is not necessarily true. I also discuss the Ramsey problem in the context of the cash‐credit goods framework with non‐homothetic preferences where neither tax‐smoothing nor wedge smoothing result necessarily holds when the Friedman rule ceases to be optimal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study introduces Stackelberg-Nash equilibrium to neoclassical growth theory. It attempts to make neoclassical economic growth theory more robust in modelling the complexity of market structures. The model is constructed within the framework of the Solow-Uzawa two-sector model. The economy is composed of two sectors. The final goods sector is the same as in the Solow one-sector growth model which is characterized by perfect competition. The consumer goods sector is the same as the consumer goods sector in the Uzawa model but is characterized by Stackelberg duopoly. We model household behavior with Zhang’s concept of disposable income and utility. The model endogenously determines profits of duopoly which are equally distributed among the homogeneous population. We build the model and then identify the existence of an equilibrium point through simulation. We conduct comparative static analyses of some parameters. We also compare the economic performance of the traditional Uzawa model and the model with the Stackelberg-Nash equilibrium. We conclude that the imperfect competition increases national output, national wealth, and utility level in comparison to perfect competition.

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We study a competitive partial equilibrium in markets where risk-averse agents solve multistage stochastic optimization problems formulated in scenario trees. The agents trade a commodity that is produced from an uncertain supply of resources. Both resources and the commodity can be stored for later consumption. Several examples of a multistage risked equilibrium are outlined, including aspects of battery and hydroelectric storage in electricity markets, distributed ownership of competing technologies relying on shared resources, and aspects of water control and pricing. The agents are assumed to have nested coherent risk measures based on one-step risk measures with polyhedral risk sets that have a nonempty intersection over agents. Agents can trade risk in a complete market of Arrow-Debreu securities. In this setting, we define a risk-trading competitive market equilibrium and establish two welfare theorems. Competitive equilibrium will yield a social optimum (with a suitably defined social risk measure) when agents have strictly monotone one-step risk measures. Conversely, a social optimum with an appropriately chosen risk measure will yield a risk-trading competitive market equilibrium when all agents have strictly monotone risk measures. The paper also demonstrates versions of these theorems when risk measures are not strictly monotone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay I critically engage with Mathias Risse and Gabriel Wollner's book On Trade Justice: A Philosophical Plea for a New Global Deal. I sketch their general view of the concept of exploitation and of trade exploitation more specifically. I then suggest that, contra Risse and Wollner, exploitation belongs to non-ideal theory. In addition, I argue that Risse and Wollner have not shown that the WTO is exploitative, and argue that their account of fair wages suffers from a number of weaknesses both on the cost and contribution sides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study constructs a growth model by integrating the three basic models in neoclassical growth theory with perfect competition and general equilibrium theory with monopolistic competition. The economy is composed of three sectors – the final good sector as in Solow’s one sector growth model, the middle goods sector for final good as Grossman and Helpman’s intermediates sector (which supplies intermediate inputs for the final good sector), and the middle goods sector for consumption as Dixit and Stiglitz’s intermediates sector (which supplies goods for consumption). Our model is different from the Solow model in that we model the household behavior with the utility function and disposable income proposed by Zhang. We deviate from the Dixit-Stiglitz model and the Grossman- Helpman model in that we distribute the profits of firms in monopolistic competition to households. We build and then simulate the model. We demonstrate the existence of a unique stable equilibrium point and plot the motion of the economy. We examine the effects of exogenous changes in some parameters. The comparative dynamic analysis analyzes the effects of the exogenous changes on transitory process and long-term equilibrium structure.

Knowing the cattle market structure will provide an explanation of competition in the market. This study was to determine the market structure of the Bali cattle, involving 200 farmers and 14 inter-island traders. The market structure is known to measure market concentration by measuring Concentration Ratio (CR4), Hirschman-Herfindahl Index (HHI) and Rosenbluth index (IR), look at the barriers to entry, market knowledge and product differentiation. The results of the analysis show that the cattle market at the research location from the breeder's side is in a perfectly competitive sales market dealing with oligopsonistic inter-island traders. In this situation the oligopsonists act as price makers and farmers are only price takers. The price takers will accept any price offered because it is in a weak position and the income earned is low. Breeding for producers is a way of life and part with culture, so low income does not prevent them from continuing to work as farmers. To overcome this problem farmers needed to join cooperatives to be able to work together to overcome difficulties. The government needs to develop the auction market so as to increase the bargaining power of farmers in selling cattle.

The rational investor behavior and news triggered price change assumed by the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) could not explain most of asset price variances, suggesting the need for an alternative theory. The Behavioral Finance Theory (BFT) advocates those economic judgments and decisions in markets are often irrational because of systematic and predictable psychological bias. However, due to the lack of measurable investment behaviors, proponents of the efficient market hypothesis argue that irrational behavior could not be reliably identified and predicted. Here we show that the price-takers behavior gauged by the normalized excess demand (NED) can be measured and the results explain most of the variances of SP500 daily returns over eight years of available data, the remaining variances are due to price-makers behavior, an influence abstracted out by the Walrasian general equilibrium theory. The interactions between behaviors of price-takers and price-makers drive market price fluctuations. For short-term prediction, we demonstrate that detected market makers' inventory positions often lead to intraday and daily market reversals. For long-term forecasting, feedback analyses of NED and SP500 data reveal signals of looming plunges and recovery processes in 2000, 2008, and 2020 market crises.

Copyright of Revista CEA is the property of Revista CEA and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)