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A Comment On Gintis's "The Dynamics of General Equilibrium"

Author

Listed:
  • Ennio Bilancini

    (University of Siena)

  • Fabio Petri

    (University of Siena)

Abstract

Gintis (2007, 'The Dynamics of General Equilibrium'', Economic Journal 117 (523) , 1280–1309) provides an agent-based model of a Walrasian economy where the tâtonnement is replaced by imitation. His simulations show that the economy converges to the Walrasian equilibrium. Gintis concludes that 1) his stability results provide some justification for the importance placed upon the Walrasian model, and 2) models allowing agents to imitate successful others lead to an economy with a reasonable level of stability and efficiency. Since these conclusions appear to be intended as general, we caution that Gintis''s findings can only be accepted for Walrasian models without capital goods in models with capital goods imitation-based adjustments alter the equilibrium''s data (which makes the demonstration of stability impossible) and raise other important problems (absent from Gintis''s simulations) still awaiting exploration.

Suggested Citation

  • Ennio Bilancini & Fabio Petri, 2008. "A Comment On Gintis's "The Dynamics of General Equilibrium"," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 2(3), pages 1-7.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-08b00001
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    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/pubs/EB/2008/Volume2/EB-08B00001A.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Bliss, C. J., 1975. "Capital Theory and the Distribution of Income," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 1, number 9780720436044 edited by Bliss, C. J..
    2. Robert Axtell, 2005. "The Complexity of Exchange," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(504), pages 193-210, June.
    3. Herbert Gintis, 2007. "The Dynamics of General Equilibrium," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(523), pages 1280-1309, October.
    4. Fabio Petri, 2004. "General Equilibrium, Capital and Macroeconomics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 3438.
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    Cited by:

    1. Sarah Wolf & Steffen Fürst & Antoine Mandel & Wiebke Lass & Daniel Lincke & Federico Pablo-Marti & Carlo Jaeger, 2013. "A multi-agent model of several economic regions," PSE - Labex "OSE-Ouvrir la Science Economique" halshs-00825217, HAL.
    2. Fabio Petri, 2009. "On the Recent Debate on Capital Theory and General Equilibrium," Department of Economics University of Siena 568, Department of Economics, University of Siena.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • B0 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - General
    • D5 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium

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