The theory of competition has held a central place in economic analysis since Adam Smith. This book, written by one of the most distinguished of contemporary economic theorists, reports on a major research program to provide strategic foundations for the theory of perfect competition. Beginning with a concise survey of how the theory of competition has evolved, Gale makes extensive and rigorous use of dynamic matching and bargaining models to provide a more complete description of how a competitive equlibrium is achieved. Whereas economists have made use of a macroscopic description of markets in which certain behavioral characteristics, such as price-taking behavior, are taken for granted, Gale uses game theory to re-evaluate this assumption, beginning with individual agents and modelling their strategic interaction. A strategic foundation for competitive equilibrium shows how such interaction leads to competitive, price-taking behavior. Essential reading for graduate courses in game theory and general equilibrium.

The theory of competition has held a central place in economic analysis since the time of Adam Smith. This book, written by one of the most distinguished of contemporary economic theorists, reports on a major research program to provide strategic foundations for the theory of competition. Making use of insights from game theory, search theory and bargaining theory, the author develops a model to explain what actually goes on in markets and how a competitive general equilibrium is achieved. Essential reading for graduate courses in game theory and general equilibrium.

General Equilibrium Theory studies the properties and operation of free market economies. The field is a response to a series of questions originally outlined by Leon Walras about the operation of markets and posed by Frank Hahn in the following way: OCyDoes the pursuit of private interest, through a system of interconnected deregulated markets, lead not to chaos but to coherence OCo and if so, how is that achieved?OCO This is always an apt question, but particularly so given the OCyGlobal Financial CrisisOCO that emerged from the operation of market economies in the Americas and Europe in mid to late 2008. The answer that General Equilibrium Theory provides to the Walras-Hahn question is that, under certain conditions coherence is possible, while under certain other conditions chaos, in various forms, is likely to prevail. The conditionality of either outcome is not always well understood OCo neither by proponents of, or antagonists to, the OCyfree market positionOCO. Consequently, this book attempts to show something of what General Equilibrium Theory has to say about the wisdom or otherwise of always relying on OCymarket forcesOCO to manage complex socio-economic systems. Sample Chapter(s). Chapter 1: General Equilibrium Theory: An Overview (138 KB). Contents: General Equilibrium Theory: An Overview; Existence of Equilibrium: Sufficient Conditions; Existence of Equilibrium: Necessary Conditions; Equilibrium and Irreducibility: Some Empirical Evidence; Existence of Equilibrium Under Alternative Income Conditions; Existence of Walrasian Equilibrium in Some NonOCoArrow-Debreu Environments; Uniqueness of Equilibrium; Stability of Equilibrium; Optimality of Equilibrium; Comparative Statics of Equilibrium States; Empirical Evidence on General Equilibrium; General Equilibrium Theory in Retrospect. Readership: Advanced undergraduates and graduate students in economics; economists interested in economic theory."

The aim of this book is to incorporate Marshallian ideas such as external increasing returns and monopolistic competitions into the general equilibrium framework of Walrasian tradition. New chapters and sections have been added to this revised and expanded edition of General Equilibrium Analysis of Production and Increasing Returns (World Scientific, 2009).The new material includes a presentation of equilibrium existence and core equivalence theorems for an infinite horizon economy with a measure space of consumers. These results are currently the focus of extensive studies by mathematical theorists, and are obtained by an application of an advanced mathematical concept called saturated (super-atomless) measure space.The second major change is the inclusion of a simple toy model of a liberal society which implements the difference principle proposed by J Rawls as a principle of distributive justice. This new section opens up a possibility to connect theoretical economics and political philosophy.Thirdly, the author presents the marginal cost pricing equilibrium and discusses welfare properties of the external increasing returns, which also belong to Marshall/ Pigou tradition of the Cambridge school.Finally, a new mathematical appendix treats basics of singular homology theory. Although the fixed point theorem is originally a theorem of algebraic topology, most economic students know its proof only in the context of the differentiable manifold theory presented by J Milnor. Considering the significance of the fixed point theorem and its playing a key role in general equilibrium theory, the purpose of this new appendix is to provide readers with the idea of a proof of Brower's fixed point theorem from the 'right place'.This volume will be helpful for graduate students and researchers of mathematical economics, game theory, and microeconomics.