Generally, two facts occur with strategic complementarities and fixed prices: i) the equilibria are multiple, and ii) if the complementarities are strong, the law of demand is violated and the equilibrium is unstable. In this paper, we analyse the effect of price flexibility on these features as well as on market welfare properties. Assuming an exchange economy with H agents consuming two goods with one strategic complement, we show that flexibility of prices may remove both the multiplicity of the equilibria and the instability of behaviour when the externalities are strong. The equilibrium with beneficial externality is shown to be Pareto optimal while the equilibrium with detrimental externality requires corrections
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 Department of Economics, University of York in its series Discussion Papers with number
08/15.
Length: Date of creation: Jul 2008 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:yor:yorken:08/15
Contact details of provider: Postal: Department of Economics and Related Studies, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, United Kingdom Phone: (0)1904 433776 Fax: (0)1904 433759 Email: Web page: http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/econ/ More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Michael Shallcross).
Find related papers by JEL classification: D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games D50 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - General
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: