Exploring General Equilibrium

Exploring General Equilibrium
Author: Fischer Black
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 340
Release: 1995
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780262023825

The general equilibrium approach, Black asserts, can be used to explain most of the economy's behavior. It can explain business cycles and growth without using sticky prices, irrationality, economies of scale, or imperfect competition. It can explain the volatility of consumption, output, sales, investment, and inventories with axiomatic utility and constant-returns-to-scale production. It can explain temporary layoffs, job changes with and without intervening unemployment, and the behavior of vacancies. It can explain lower wages in part-time jobs, wages that increase rapidly with time on the job, and the forces that cause migration from poor to rich countries. Although the general equilibrium approach cannot be tested in conventional ways, it can be used to generate examples that explain stylized facts - generalized observations from the real world - that have preoccupied macroeconomists for the last decade. Black contrasts his interpretation of these facts with conventional views. Finally, he reviews a substantial body of literature on these topics.

Exploring General Equilibrium

Exploring General Equilibrium
Author: Fischer S. Black
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2010-05-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0262514095

An incisive, unconventional assessment of general equilibrium theory; with a previously unpublished paper. Fischer Black is known for his brilliance as well as his sometimes controversial opinions. Highly respected for his scholarly writings in finance, he now moves into different territory with this incisive, unconventional assessment of general equilibrium theory and what that theory reveals about business cycles, growth, and labor economics. The general equilibrium approach, Black asserts, can be used to explain most of the economy's behavior. It can explain business cycles and growth without using sticky prices, irrationality, economies of scale, or imperfect competition. It can explain the volatility of consumption, output, sales, investment, and inventories with axiomatic utility and constant-returns-to-scale production. It can explain temporary layoffs, job changes with and without intervening unemployment, and the behavior of vacancies. It can explain lower wages in part-time jobs, wages that increase rapidly with time on the job, and the forces that cause migration from poor to rich countries. Although the general equilibrium approach can't be tested in conventional ways, it can be used to generate examples that explain stylized facts—generalized observations from the real world—that have preoccupied macroeconomists for the last decade. Black contrasts his interpretation of these facts with conventional interpretations. Finally, he reviews a substantial body of literature on these topics.

General Equilibrium Theory

General Equilibrium Theory
Author: Ross M. Starr
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 1997-07-13
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780521564731

General Equilibrium Theory: An Introduction treats the classic Arrow-Debreu general equilibrium model in a form accessible to graduate students and advanced undergraduates in economics and mathematics. Topics covered include mathematical preliminaries, households and firms, existence of general equilibrium, Pareto efficiency of general equilibrium, the First and Second Fundamental Theorems of Welfare Economics, the core and core convergences, future markets over time and contingent commodity markets under uncertainty. Demand, supply, and excess demand appear first as (point-valued) functions, then optionally as (set-valued) correspondences. The mathematics presented (with elementary proofs of the theorems) includes a real analysis, the Brouwer fixed point theorem, and separating and supporting hyperplane theorems. Optional chapters introduce the existence of equilibrium with set-valued supply and demand, the mathematics of upper and lower hemicontinuous correspondences, and the Kakutani fixed point theorem. The treatment emphasizes clarity and accessibility to the student through use of examples and intuition.

Business Cycles and Equilibrium

Business Cycles and Equilibrium
Author: Fischer Black
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2009-11-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0470499176

An updated look at what Fischer Black's ideas on business cycles and equilibrium mean today Throughout his career, Fischer Black described a view of business fluctuations based on the idea that a well-developed economy will be continually in equilibrium. In the essays that constitute this book, which is one of only two books Black ever wrote, he explores this idea thoroughly and reaches some surprising conclusions. With the newfound popularity of quantitative finance and risk management, the work of Fischer Black has garnered much attention. Business Cycles and Equilibrium-with its theory that economic and financial markets are in a continual equilibrium-is one of his books that still rings true today, given the current economic crisis. This Updated Edition clearly presents Black's classic theory on business cycles and the concept of equilibrium, and contains a new introduction by the person who knows Black best: Perry Mehrling, author of Fischer Black and the Revolutionary Idea of Finance (Wiley). Mehrling goes inside Black's life to uncover what was occurring during the time Black wrote Business Cycles and Equilibrium, while also shedding light on what Black would make of today's financial and economic meltdown and how he would best advise to move forward. The essays within this book reach some interesting conclusions concerning the role of equilibrium in a developed economy Warns about the use and abuse of modeling Explains the risky business of risk in a straightforward and accessible style Contains chapters dedicated to "the effects of uncontrolled banking," "the trouble with econometric models," and "the effects of noise on investing" Includes commentary on Black's life and work at the time Business Cycles and Equilibrium was written as well as insight as to what Black would make of the current financial meltdown Engaging and informative, the Updated Edition of Business Cycles and Equilibrium will give you a better understanding of what is really going on during these uncertain and volatile financial times.

Transforming Modern Macroeconomics

Transforming Modern Macroeconomics
Author: Roger E. Backhouse
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2013
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 110702319X

Since the 1950s, macroeconomics has been transformed. This book is about one of the most important aspects of that transformation: the attempt, through the end of the twenty-first century and beyond, to construct macroeconomic models rigorously derived from models of individual firms and households.

Whither Socialism?

Whither Socialism?
Author: Joseph E. Stiglitz
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 360
Release: 1996-01-31
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780262691826

The rapid collapse of socialism has raised new economic policy questions and revived old theoretical issues. In this book, Joseph Stiglitz explains how the neoclassical, or Walrasian model (the formal articulation of Adam Smith's invisible hand), which has dominated economic thought over the past half century, may have wrongly encouraged the belief that market socialism could work. Stiglitz proposes an alternative model, based on the economics of information, that provides greater theoretical insight into the workings of a market economy and clearer guidance for the setting of policy in transitional economies. Stiglitz sees the critical failing in the standard neoclassical model underlying market socialism to be its assumptions concerning information, particularly its failure to consider the problems that arise from lack of perfect information and from the costs of acquiring information. He also identifies problems arising from its assumptions concerning completeness of markets, competitiveness of markets, and the absence of innovation. Stiglitz argues that not only did the existing paradigm fail to provide much guidance on the vital question of the choice of economic systems, the advice it did provide was often misleading.

Fixed Points and Economic Equilibria

Fixed Points and Economic Equilibria
Author: Ken Urai
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2010
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9812837191

1. Introduction. 1.1. Mathematics is language. 1.2. Notes on some mathematical tools in this book. 1.3. Basic mathematical concepts and definitions -- 2. Fixed-point theorems. 2.1. Classical results and basic extensions. 2.2. Convexity and duality for general spaces. 2.3. Extension of classical results to general spaces -- 3. Nash equilibrium and abstract economy. 3.1. Multi-agent product settings for games. 3.2. Nash equilibrium. 3.3. Abstract economy -- 4. Gale-Nikaido-Debreu's theorem. 4.1. Gale-Nikaido-Debreu's theorem. 4.2. Market equilibria in general vector spaces. 4.3. Demand-supply coincidence in general spaces -- 5. General economic equilibrium. 5.1. General preferences and basic existence theorems. 5.2. Pareto optimal allocations. 5.3. Existence of general equilibrium -- 6. The C̮ech type homology theory and fixed points. 6.1. Basic concepts in algebraic topology. 6.2. Vietoris-Begle mapping and local connectedness. 6.3. Nikaido's analogue of Sperner's lemma. 6.4. Eilenberg-Montgomery's theorem -- 7. Convex structure and fixed-point index. 7.1. Lefschetz's fixed-point theorem and its extensions. 7.2. Cohomology theory for general spaces. 7.3. Dual-system structure and differentiability. 7.4. Linear Approximation for Isolated Fixed Points. 7.5. Indices for compact set of fixed points -- 8. Applications to related topics. 8.1. KKM, KKMS, and core existence. 8.2. Eaves' theorem. 8.3. Fan-Browder's coincidence theorem. 8.4. L-majorized mappings. 8.5. Variational inequality problem. 8.6. Equilibrium with cooperative concepts. 8.7. System of inequalities and affine transformations -- 9. Mathematics and social science. 9.1. Basic concepts in axiomatic set theory. 9.2. Individuals and rationality. 9.3. Society and values -- 10. Concluding discussions. 10.1. Fixed points and economic equilibria. 10.2. Rationality and fixed-point views of the world

A History of Macroeconomics from Keynes to Lucas and Beyond

A History of Macroeconomics from Keynes to Lucas and Beyond
Author: Michel De Vroey
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 451
Release: 2016-01-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0521898439

This book retraces the history of macroeconomics from Keynes's General Theory to the present. Central to it is the contrast between a Keynesian era and a Lucasian - or dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) - era, each ruled by distinct methodological standards. In the Keynesian era, the book studies the following theories: Keynesian macroeconomics, monetarism, disequilibrium macro (Patinkin, Leijongufvud, and Clower) non-Walrasian equilibrium models, and first-generation new Keynesian models. Three stages are identified in the DSGE era: new classical macro (Lucas), RBC modelling, and second-generation new Keynesian modeling. The book also examines a few selected works aimed at presenting alternatives to Lucasian macro. While not eschewing analytical content, Michel De Vroey focuses on substantive assessments, and the models studied are presented in a pedagogical and vivid yet critical way.

Dynamic General Equilibrium Modeling

Dynamic General Equilibrium Modeling
Author: Burkhard Heer
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 720
Release: 2009-08-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 364203148X

Modern business cycle theory and growth theory uses stochastic dynamic general equilibrium models. In order to solve these models, economists need to use many mathematical tools. This book presents various methods in order to compute the dynamics of general equilibrium models. In part I, the representative-agent stochastic growth model is solved with the help of value function iteration, linear and linear quadratic approximation methods, parameterised expectations and projection methods. In order to apply these methods, fundamentals from numerical analysis are reviewed in detail. In particular, the book discusses issues that are often neglected in existing work on computational methods, e.g. how to find a good initial value. In part II, the authors discuss methods in order to solve heterogeneous-agent economies. In such economies, the distribution of the individual state variables is endogenous. This part of the book also serves as an introduction to the modern theory of distribution economics. Applications include the dynamics of the income distribution over the business cycle or the overlapping-generations model. In an accompanying home page to this book, computer codes to all applications can be downloaded.

Illusions of Location Theory: Consequences for Blue Economy in Africa

Illusions of Location Theory: Consequences for Blue Economy in Africa
Author: Francis Onditi
Publisher: Vernon Press
Total Pages: 466
Release: 2021-01-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1648891594

"Illusions of Location Theory: Consequences for Blue Economy in Africa" questions the relevance of ‘location theory’ in explaining the coastal-hinterland continuum and the implications for the utilization of blue economy ecosystem in such a contested space in Africa. It pays more attention to territorial contestations, maritime disputes, vulnerabilities of landlocked states, and expansionist policies as displayed through spatial organizational regimes. These areas of investigation have previously been largely studied from the narrow perspective of ‘location’, unduly focusing on comparative advantages of ‘distance’, while neglecting the influence of ‘forces’ such as technology, ideology, and the power of mental mapping in spatial decision making. This volume puts forward the argument that the harmonious relationship between states, and efficient exploitation of the blue economy ecosystem in ways that promote peace between states, lies not only in the structural transformation of markets, but also in bridging the spatial and social divide between the coastal and hinterland societies. Thus, this work proffers possibilities for a holistic regime for managing Africa’s coastal-hinterland continuum through innovative strategies such as SMART blue economies and the infusion of the geopolitical dimension into the management of maritime and territorial diplomacy. The combination of theoretical and empirical analysis, buttressed by in-depth case studies of what works in the management of blue economy ecosystem and what does not work, make this volume ideal for researchers, students, and practitioners interested in African regional studies, African political economy, political geography, strategic military studies, governance of seas and oceans, and maritime science/diplomacy.