CiNii Books - Microeconomic theory

Contrary to widely held beliefs, microeconomic theory bears no rela tion to the size of the product under consideration; indeed a micro theorist can just as easily discuss the sale of a whale as he would discuss a whale of a sale in amoebae. In fact, it possibly is true that a theorist, and a microeconomic theorist in particular, does not have any specific products in mind when he bandies his propositions about. Nor does he have to. For these in the final analysis are just that; propositions. They are propositions that are motivated by economic reality as observable, not to mention controllable, as that may be, but they are no more and no less than comments about that economic reality and they emphatically are not descriptive assays of it. They are more or less, caricatures of economic reality or metaphors where bold distortions are pressed to the task of describing preconceived visions of that reality. These visions, given their fundamentally qualitative nature, are hardly fit to be put to the test of statistical verification. Perhaps only the judgement and "intuitive feel" of practicing economists over the years are the only true tests of the viability and robustness of these propositional comments on economic reality which make up the body of economic theory. It is not the abstractions that make the difference, all science is that way; metaphoric.

Table of Contents

I: Consumers Demand.- 1: Preferences, Utility and Choice.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Preferences.- 3. Preferences and Utility.- Problems.- 2: Demand.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Utility Maximization and Expenditure Minimization.- 3. Demand Functions, Substitution Effects and Income Effects.- 4. Differentiable Demand Functions, First-Order and Second-Order Conditions.- 5. The Slutsky Equations, Substitutions Effects and Income Effects under Differentiability.- 6. Recoverability.- Problems.- 3: Topics in Demand Analysis.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Individual Demand and Aggregate Demand.- (i) The Possibility of the Aggregate Demand Function as a Function of the Aggregate Income.- (ii) The Aggregate Demand and the Classical Law of Demand.- (iii) The Entry Effect of Consumers and the Law of Demand.- (iv) Income Adjustments and Demand Functions.- 3. Consumers Demand Over Time.- Problems.- II: Costs, Production and Price Taking Firms.- 4: Costs and Production.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Technology Sets and Production Functions.- 3. Short-run Cost Functions and Conditional Input Demand Functions.- 4. Duality Between Production Functions and Cost Functions.- 5: Price Taking Firms.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Short-run Profit Maximization, Short-run Output Supply and Derived Demand for Variable Inputs.- 3. The Envelope Property, LeChatelier-Samuelson Principle and the Theory of Cost and Production.- a) Introduction.- b) The Envelope Property of Maximum Value Functions.- c) The LeChatelier-Samuelson Principle and the Theory of Cost and Production.- 4. The Case of Homothetic Production Functions.- 6: Industry Supply and Industry Equilibrium in a Competitive Market.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Short-run Industry Supply and Short-run Industry Equilibrium.- 3. Long-run Industry Supply and Long-run Equilibrium of an Industry.- Problems for Part II.- III: Market Structure.- 7: Monopoly.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Monopoly with Perceived Demand Functions.- 3. Monopoly and Efficiency.- 4. Discriminating Monopoly in a Single Market.- 5. Discriminating Monopoly in Separate Markets.- 8: Duopoly and Oligopoly.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Cournot Duopoly and Oligopoly.- a) Introduction.- b) Static Cournot Duopoly and Oligopoly.- c) Cournot Duopoly with a Fixed Entry Cost.- d) Repeated Cournot Oligopoly.- (i) An Infinite Horizon Case.- (ii) Finitely Repeated Oligopoly Game and ?--Equilibria.- 3. Bertrand-Edgeworth Duopoly.- a) Bertrand Duopoly Model.- b) Bertrand-Edgeworth Duopoly Model with Capacity Limits.- 4. Symmetric Cournot Equilibrium with Free Entry and Small Efficient Scale.- a) Introduction.- b) The Model, Equilibrium Concept and Assumptions.- c) The Existence of a Symmetric Cournot Equilibrium with Free Entry.- 5. Perceived Reaction Functions, Conjectural Variations and Consistent Conjectural Variations.- a) Perceived Reaction Functions and Conjectural Variations.- b) Perceived Reaction Functions and Consistent Conjectural Variations.- 9: Monopolistic Competition.- 1. Introduction.- 2. A Traditional Model of Monopolistic Competition with Product Differentiation.- a) Introduction.- b) Demand Functions and the Cost Function.- c) Symmetric Short-run Equilibria with Differentiated Products.- d) Symmetric Long-run Equilibria of Monopolistic Competition.- 3. Hotelling's Model of Product Differentiation on Spatial Competition.- 4. A Modified Hotelling Model of Product Differentiation and Monopolistic Competition.- 10: Topics in the Theory of the Firm.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Labor Managed Firms.- 3. Regulated Firms.- 4. A Capital Managed Firm.- 5. Dynamics of Monopoly.- 6. A Case of Duopoly.- Problems for Part III.- IV: The Economy.- 11: Production Possibility Set, Activity Analysis and Equilibria of Production Sectors.- 1. Introduction.- 2. The Concept of a Production Possibility Set.- 3. The GNP Maximization and the Value Minimization of Resources.- 4. A Structure of Production Possibility Sets.- Problems.- 12: Introduction to Welfare Economics and General Equilibrium Analysis.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Production, Pareto Efficiency and Competitive Equilibrium.- a) Efficiency in Production.- b) Pareto Efficiency and Equilibrium.- c) Existence of Equilibria.- Problems.- Mathematical Appendix.- 1. Relations and Functions.- 2. Linear Spaces.- 3. Calculus.- 4. Concavity and Generalization.- 6. Optimization in More General Spaces.- 7. A Maximum Theorem.- 8. Notes on the Literature.- References.

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Microeconomic theory

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