IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/col/000442/010514.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Early Neoclassical views on Monopoly: the Cournotian heritage

Author

Listed:
  • Andrés Álvarez

Abstract

In spite of Cournot´s unquestionable influence on contemporary theory, his legacy regarding economic policy and, especially, the regulation of monopolies is mostly unknown. In this paper I explore the several forms of Cournot´s analysis of monopolistic market structures, starting with his theoretical model up to his normative and empirical examination. With the help of little known texts of the author I aim at showing the versatility of his ideas and the richness of his analytical legacy. Against this setup I retrace his influence over three of the most important economists of the end of the XIXth century: Walras, Edgeworth and Marshall. I show that there exists a theoretical representation that constitutes the indisputable reference regarding monopolies that is enriched with normative analyses and leads each one of them to their own specific proposals in regulation and economic policy. RESUMENA pesar de la influencia teórica indiscutible de Cournot sobre la teoría contemporánea, su legado en relación con las políticas económicas y en particular con la regulación de los monopolios es mucho menor. Este trabajo explora las formas diversas que tiene el análisis de las estructuras monopólicas de mercado propuesto por Cournot, partiendo de su modelo teórico hasta su análisis más normativo y empírico. Utilizando textos poco conocidos del autor se pone en evidencia la versatilidad de sus ideas y la riqueza de su legado analítico. A partir de estos elementos se intenta reconstruir la influencia que sus ideas tuvieron sobre tres de los principales autores de finales del siglo XIX: Walras, Edgeworth y Marshall. Se muestra que existe una representación teórica que constituye la referencia indiscutible sobre los monopolios pero que se enriquece en los análisis normativos y resulta en propuestas de regulación y de política económica diversas que cada uno de estos autores desarrolla y se apropia de manera diferente.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrés Álvarez, 2010. "Early Neoclassical views on Monopoly: the Cournotian heritage," Revista Ecos de Economía, Universidad EAFIT, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:col:000442:010514
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://publicaciones.eafit.edu.co/index.php/ecos-economia/article/view/181/183
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rodolphe Dos Santos Ferreira, 2004. "Guerre et paix. Variations sur la notion de concurrence au siècle de Cournot," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 55(3), pages 543-556.
    2. Xavier Greffe & Jérôme Lallement & Michel de Vroey, 2002. "Dictionnaire des grandes oeuvres économiques," Post-Print halshs-00272064, HAL.
    3. James W. Friedman, 2000. "The legacy of Augustin Cournot," Cahiers d'Économie Politique, Programme National Persée, vol. 37(1), pages 31-46.
    4. Wagner, Alfred, 1891. "Marshall's Principles of Economics," History of Economic Thought Articles, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, vol. 5, pages 319-338.
    5. Rodolphe dos Santos Ferreira, 2004. "Guerre et paix," Post-Print hal-00279336, HAL.
    6. Edgeworth, Francis Ysidro, 1881. "Mathematical Psychics," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number edgeworth1881.
    7. Carlo Benetti, 1997. "El método normativo de la teoría económica positiva (Traducción de José Félix Catano)," Revista Cuadernos de Economia, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, FCE, CID, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Yariv, Leeat & Jackson, Matthew O., 2018. "The Non-Existence of Representative Agents," CEPR Discussion Papers 13397, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Vind, Karl, 1995. "Perfect competition or the core," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 1733-1745, December.
    3. Helen Scarborough & Jeff Bennett, 2012. "Cost–Benefit Analysis and Distributional Preferences," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14376.
    4. A.J. Arnold, 2017. "Capital reduction case law decisions and the development of the capital maintenance doctrine in late-nineteenth-century England," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(2), pages 172-190, February.
    5. Yukiko SAITO, 2013. "Role of Hub Firms in Geographical Transaction Network," Discussion papers 13080, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    6. Emanuela Marrocu & Raffaele Paci & Stefano Usai, 2013. "Productivity Growth In The Old And New Europe: The Role Of Agglomeration Externalities," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 418-442, August.
    7. Duranton, Gilles & Jayet, Hubert, 2011. "Is the division of labour limited by the extent of the market? Evidence from French cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 56-71, January.
    8. Kristien Werck & Bruno Heyndels & Benny Geys, 2008. "The impact of ‘central places’ on spatial spending patterns: evidence from Flemish local government cultural expenditures," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 32(1), pages 35-58, March.
    9. Koech Cheruiyot, 2022. "Detecting spatial economic clusters using kernel density and global and local Moran's I analysis in Ekurhuleni metropolitan municipality, South Africa," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(2), pages 307-327, April.
    10. Evert-Jan Visser & Oedzge Atzema, 2007. "With or Without Clusters: Facilitating Innovation through a Differentiated and Combined Network Approach," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(9), pages 1169-1188, April.
    11. Ramesh Chandra & Roger J. Sandilands, 2021. "Nicholas Kaldor, increasing returns and Verdoorn’s Law," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(2), pages 315-339, April.
    12. Daichi SHIMAMOTO & Yu Ri KIM & Yasuyuki TODO, 2019. "The Effect of Social Interactions on Exporting Activities: Evidence from Micro, Small, and Medium-Sized Enterprises in rural Vietnam," Discussion papers 19020, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    13. Carlino, Gerald & Kerr, William R., 2015. "Agglomeration and Innovation," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 349-404, Elsevier.
    14. Giulia Faggio & Olmo Silva & William C Strange, 2020. "Tales of the city: what do agglomeration cases tell us about agglomeration in general? [The anchor tenant hypothesis: exploring the role of large, local, R&D-intensive firms in regional innovation ," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(5), pages 1117-1143.
    15. Paola Tubaro, 2009. "Is individual rationality essential to market price formation? The contribution of zero-intelligence agent trading models," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(1), pages 1-19.
    16. Berliant, Marcus & Reed III, Robert R. & Wang, Ping, 2006. "Knowledge exchange, matching, and agglomeration," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 69-95, July.
    17. H. W. Arndt, 1984. "Political Economy," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 60(3), pages 266-273, September.
    18. Sun, Ning & Trockel, Walter & Yang, Zaifu, 2008. "Competitive outcomes and endogenous coalition formation in an n-person game," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(7-8), pages 853-860, July.
    19. G.M. Peter Swann, 2017. "A Welcome Revolution in Innovation," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(2), pages 223-231, May.
    20. Anders Waxell, 2008. "Guilty by Association: A Cross-industrial Approach to Sourcing Complementary Knowledge in the Uppsala Biotechnology Cluster," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(11), pages 1605-1624, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cournot; Walras; Edgeworth; Marshall; Monopolio; Organización Industrial.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B13 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Neoclassical through 1925 (Austrian, Marshallian, Walrasian, Wicksellian)
    • B16 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Quantitative and Mathematical
    • D42 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Monopoly

    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:col:000442:010514. 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: Valor Público EAFIT - Centro de estudios e incidencia (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deafico.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.