Institutions, Equilibria and Efficiency

Book excerpt: Competition and efficiency is at the core of economic theory. This volume collects papers of leading scholars, which extend the conventional general equilibrium model in important ways: Efficiency and price regulation are studied when markets are incomplete and existence of equilibria in such settings is proven under very general preference assumptions. The model is extended to include geographical location choice, a commodity space incorporating manufacturing imprecision and preferences for club-membership, schools and firms. Inefficiencies arising from household externalities or group membership are evaluated. Core equivalence is shown for bargaining economies. The theory of risk aversion is extended and the relation between risk taking and wealth is experimentally investigated. Other topics include determinacy in OLG with cash-in-advance constraints, income distribution and democracy in OLG, learning in OLG and in games, optimal pricing of derivative securities, the impact of heterogeneity at the individual level for aggregate consumption, and adaptive contracting in view of uncertainty.