The macroeconomics of imperect competition has become in recent years a most influential paradigm, which many macroeconomists now prefer to the Classical of Keynesian ones, notably because of its clear and rigorous microfoundations. This volume collects and puts into perspective the leading contributions to this important and rapidly expanding field.
This volume links a microeconomic model of imperfectly informed firms and unions in monopolistic competition to a general theory of wage- and price-setting in a macroeconomic model. The analysis is based on a profit maximization and rational behaviour and is thus in line with the newly emerged New Keynesian approach in its emphasis on the microeconomic foundation of macroeconomics. The volume goes on to explain three stylized facts in macroeconomics: nominal rigidity, real rigidity, and cost-oriented prices, presented in a coherent New Keynesian framework. The analysis also provides new insight into the role of competition in an economy with imperfectly and differentially informed firms. It shows that increased competition may increase nominal as well as real price rigidity and increased volatility of investment.
This thesis was stimulated throughout the time of my participation in a research project on Dynamic Macroeconomics, supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The starting point was the central question of how to integrate price setting firms in a dynamic disequilibrium model. Almost all recent literature on imperfect competition in macroeconomics applies the objective demand approach by assuming that firms know the true demand curve they are faced with. While this approach can be ap plied in temporary monetary equilibrium models, it proves inadequate for formulating price adjustment in a dynamic disequilibrium model, where it has to be replaced by the concept of subjective demand. Based on this distinction, the thesis starts out with a comparison of the concepts of subjective and objective demand in an abstract framework and surveys the literature on general equilibrium theory with imperfect competition. The objective demand approach is criticized not only on the grounds of its strong rationality requirements and existence problems, but also by the observation that it cannot be applied successfully to characterize determinate rational expectations equilibria in intertemporal macroeco nomics. Finally, price setting firms using subjective demand functions are integrated in a dynamic disequilibrium model in order to study mo nopolistic and oligopolistic price adjustment.
Much of today's conventional macroeconomic theory presumes that markets for goods approach the state of perfect competition. Monopolistic Competition and Macroeconomic Theory assumes that markets are imperfect, so that sellers have some power over price, and must therefore form quantity expectations about the location of the firm's demand curve. The question is then about the macroeconomic implications of imperfect competition in goods markets. The first chapter is a brief survey of ideas proposed in economics including multiple equilibria. The second chapter describes a particular micro-based macro model that allows several families of equilibria. The third chapter shows how a standard locational model can be used to describe a sample macroeconomy when firms have close rivals. In this volume derived from his Federico Caffe Lecture, Nobel Laureate Robert Solow shows that there are simple and tractable micro-based models that offer the possibility of a richer and more intuitive macroeconomics.
In this book, Jean-Pascal Benassy attempts to integrate into a single unified framework dynamic macroeconomic models reflecting such diverse lines of thought as general equilibrium theory, imperfect competition, Keynesian theory, and rational expectations. He begins with a simple microeconomic synthesis of imperfect competition and nonclearing markets in general equilibrium under rational expectations. He then applies this framework to a large number of dynamic macroeconomic models, covering such topics as persistent unemployment, endogenous growth, and optimal fiscal-monetary policies. The macroeconomic methodology he uses is similar in spirit to that of the popular real business cycles theory, but the scope is much wider. All of the models are solved "by hand," making the underlying economic mechanisms particularly clear.
This collection of Malcolm Sawyer's essays develops the post Keynesian analyses of unemployment, imperfect competition and macroeconomics. This important volume focuses on the causes of unemployment, a central concern of contemporary post Keynesian economics whose origins can be dated from the response to the high levels of unemployment during the 1930s. After explaining why conventional economic analysis cannot properly comprehend the phenomenon of unemployment, Professor Sawyer's book explores the relationship between demand-side and supply-side causes and argues for the relevance of both for the analysis of unemployment. Other issues discussed include the relationship between macroeconomics and imperfect competition, the post Keynesian approach to pricing and post Keynesian perspectives on industrial economics. Unemployment, Imperfect Competition and Macroeconomics, critically but sympathetically, evaluates and extends the contribution of post Keynesian analysis, and discusses the problems which those analyses face. Bringing together contributions from a major scholar working in this field, the book will be welcomed by all those interested in the post Keynesian approach and the contributions it can make to economic analysis.
A single unified framework that integrates dynamic macroeconomics models on general equilibrium theory, imperfect competition, nonclearing markets, and rational expectations.
