IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_224.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Imperfect Competition, General Equilibrium and Unemployment

Author

Listed:
  • Hans Gersbach
  • Achim Schniewind

Abstract

We analyze whether different learning abilities of firms with respect to general equilibrium effects lead to different levels of unemployment. We consider a general equilibrium model where firms in one sector compete à la Cournot and a real wage rigidity leads to unemployment. If firms consider only partial equilibrium effects when choosing quantities, the observation of general equilibrium feedback effects will lead to repeated quantity adjustments until a steady state is reached. When labor is im mobile across industries, unempolyment in the steady state is lower than when all general equilibrium effects are incorporated at once. The opposite result is true if labor is mobile.

Suggested Citation

  • Hans Gersbach & Achim Schniewind, 1999. "Imperfect Competition, General Equilibrium and Unemployment," CESifo Working Paper Series 224, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_224
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo_wp224.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jaskold Gabszewicz, Jean & Vial, Jean-Philippe, 1972. "Oligopoly "A la cournot" in a general equilibrium analysis," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 381-400, June.
    2. Brander, James & Krugman, Paul, 1983. "A 'reciprocal dumping' model of international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3-4), pages 313-321, November.
    3. Gilles Saint-Paul, 1994. "Searching for the Virtues of the European Model," IMF Working Papers 1994/046, International Monetary Fund.
    4. Gersbach, Hans & Schniewind, Achim, 2001. "Awareness of General Equilibrium Effects and Unemployment," IZA Discussion Papers 394, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Fudenberg, Drew & Levine, David, 1998. "Learning in games," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 631-639, May.
    6. Gale,Douglas, 2000. "Strategic Foundations of General Equilibrium," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521644105, January.
    7. Dixit, Avinash, 1984. "International Trade Policy for Oligopolistic Industries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 94(376a), pages 1-16, Supplemen.
    8. James R. MARKUSEN, 2021. "Trade And The Gains From Trade With Imperfect Competition," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: BROADENING TRADE THEORY Incorporating Market Realities into Traditional Models, chapter 14, pages 303-323, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Markusen, James R. & Venables, Anthony J., 1988. "Trade policy with increasing returns and imperfect competition : Contradictory results from competing assumptions," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3-4), pages 299-316, May.
    10. Ignatius J. Horstmann & James R. Markusen, 2021. "Endogenous market structures in international trade (natura facit saltum)," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: BROADENING TRADE THEORY Incorporating Market Realities into Traditional Models, chapter 2, pages 25-45, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    11. Victor Ginsburgh & Michiel Keyzer, 2002. "The Structure of Applied General Equilibrium Models," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262571579, December.
    12. Brander, James A. & Spencer, Barbara J., 1985. "Export subsidies and international market share rivalry," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1-2), pages 83-100, February.
    13. Venables, Anthony J., 1985. "Trade and trade policy with imperfect competition: The case of identical products and free entry," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1-2), pages 1-19, August.
    14. Jonathan Eaton & Gene M. Grossman, 1986. "Optimal Trade and Industrial Policy Under Oligopoly," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(2), pages 383-406.
    15. Gersbach, Hans & Schniewind, Achim, 2001. "Learning of General Equilibrium Effects and the Unemployment Trap," IZA Discussion Papers 254, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. GABSZEWICZ, Jean J., 1999. "GeneRal EQuilibrium Economics: allowing for imperfect competition," LIDAM Reprints CORE 1417, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    17. Kirman, Alan P. & Gerard-Varet, Louis-Andre (ed.), 1999. "Economics Beyond the Millennium," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198292111, Decembrie.
    18. Drew Fudenberg & David K. Levine, 1998. "The Theory of Learning in Games," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262061945, December.
    19. Dixon,Huw David & Rankin,Neil, 1995. "The New Macroeconomics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521479479.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tchoffo, Rodrigue & Ngouhouo, Ibrahim & Nkemgha, Guivis, 2020. "Trade Liberalization and Macroeconomic Performance in Cameroon: An Imperfect Competition Approach," MPRA Paper 98558, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 09 Feb 2020.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brander, James A., 1995. "Strategic trade policy," Handbook of International Economics, in: G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 27, pages 1395-1455, Elsevier.
    2. Ignatius J. Horstmann & James R. Markusen, 1990. "Endogenous Market Structures in International Trade," NBER Working Papers 3283, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Venables, Anthony, 1996. "Lecture Notes on International Trade and Imperfect Competition," Working Paper Series 463, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    4. Keith Head & Barbara J. Spencer, 2017. "Oligopoly in international trade: Rise, fall and resurgence," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1414-1444, December.
    5. Harris, Richard G., 1989. "The New Protectionism Revisited," Queen's Institute for Economic Research Discussion Papers 275219, Queen's University - Department of Economics.
    6. Federico Etro, 2012. "Endogenous Market Structures and International Trade. II: Optimal Trade Policy," Working Papers 2012:32, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    7. Federico Etro, 2014. "Optimal Trade Policy under Endogenous Foreign Entry," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 90(290), pages 282-300, September.
    8. H. Molana & T. Moutos, 1992. "Returns to scale, imperfect competition and aggregate demand and trade policy effects in a two-country model," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 271-295, October.
    9. Krugman, Paul R., 1989. "Industrial organization and international trade," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 20, pages 1179-1223, Elsevier.
    10. Koska, Onur A. & Stähler, Frank, 2014. "Trade and imperfect competition in general equilibrium," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 157-168.
    11. Roberto A. De Santis & Frank Stähler, 2001. "Trade Policies for Exporting Industries under Free Entry," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 2(4), pages 327-338, November.
    12. Dermot Leahy & J. Peter Neary, 2013. "Oligopoly and Trade," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Daniel Bernhofen & Rod Falvey & David Greenaway & Udo Kreickemeier (ed.), Palgrave Handbook of International Trade, chapter 7, pages 197-235, Palgrave Macmillan.
    13. Colacicco, Rudy, 2012. "Strategic Trade Policy in General Oligopolistic Equilibrium," MPRA Paper 38118, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Hong Hwang & Chao‐cheng Mai, 1999. "Optimal Export Taxes with an Endogenous Location," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 65(4), pages 940-952, April.
    15. Frank Stähler & Thorsten Upmann, 2008. "Market Entry Regulation and International Competition," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(4), pages 611-626, September.
    16. Dermot Leahy & Catia Montagna, 1998. "Targeted Strategic Trade Policy with Domestic Cost Heterogeneity," Dundee Discussion Papers in Economics 100, Economic Studies, University of Dundee.
    17. Siebert, Horst, 1988. "Strategische Handelspolitik: Theoretische Ansätze und wirtschaftspolitische Empfehlungen," Discussion Papers, Series II 43, University of Konstanz, Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 178 "Internationalization of the Economy".
    18. Collie, David R., 2019. "Trade Wars under Oligopoly: Who Wins and is Free Trade Sustainable?," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2019/4, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    19. Eromenko, Igor & Lisenkova, Katerina, 2006. "Impact of joining the WTO on Ukrainian ferrous metallurgy: subsidies vs. antidumping, is there really a trade-off?," MPRA Paper 67477, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Ruffin, Roy J., 2003. "Oligopoly and trade: what, how much, and for whom?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 315-335, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Product markets; Cournot competition; learning of general equilibrium effects; unemployment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D58 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Computable and Other Applied General Equilibrium Models
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J60 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - General
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_224. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.