Further Remarks On Walras' Law And Nonoptimal Equilibria

In a recent paper, Aiyagari (1992) demonstrates a connection between the failure of Walras' Law and nonoptimal equihbria in overlapping generations economies. The significant implication of Walras' Law in finite economies, given all prices are positive and all consumers are locally nonsatiated, is that an excess supply (in value terms) cannot exist for some subset of goods without an excess demand (in value terms) existing for some other subset of goods. Aiyagari defines the failure of Walras' Law as a situation in which this implication of Walras' Law does not hold. His basic (and interesting) result is to show that "a competitive equilibrium is nonoptimal if and only if the above implication of Walras' Law fails in its neighborhood."