We give variants on Berge's Maximum Theorem in which the lower and the upper semicontinuities of the preference relation are assumed for two different topologies on the action set, i.e., the set of actions availabe a priori to the decision-maker (e.g. a household with its consumption set). Two new uses are pointed to. One result, stated here without a detailed proof, is the norm-to-weak* continuity of consumer demand as a function of prices (a property pointed to in existing literature but without proof or precise formulation). This improves significantly upon an earlier demand continuity result which, with the extremally strong 'finite' topology on the price space, is of limited interest other than as a vehicle for an equilibrium existence proof. With the norm topology on the price space, our demand continuity result acquires an independent significance - particularly for practical implementations of the equilibrium solution. The second application referred to establishes the continuity of the optimal plan as a function of the decision-maker's information (represented by a field of events in a probability spcace of states).
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE in its series STICERD - Theoretical Economics Paper Series with number
347.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: