IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/mateco/v95y2021ics0304406821000136.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The invisible hand of Laplace: The role of market structure in price convergence and oscillation

Author

Listed:
  • Rabani, Yuval
  • Schulman, Leonard J.

Abstract

The “invisible hand” of the free market is remarkably effective at producing near-equilibrium prices. This is difficult to quantify, however, in the absence of an agreed model for out-of-equilibrium trade. Short of a fully reductionist model, a useful substitute would be a scaling law relating equilibration time and other market parameters. Even this, however, is missing in the literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Rabani, Yuval & Schulman, Leonard J., 2021. "The invisible hand of Laplace: The role of market structure in price convergence and oscillation," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:mateco:v:95:y:2021:i:c:s0304406821000136
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jmateco.2021.102475
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304406821000136
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jmateco.2021.102475?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mandel, Antoine & Gintis, Herbert, 2014. "Stochastic stability in the Scarf economy," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 44-49.
    2. Smale, Stephen, 1976. "Exchange processes with price adjustment," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 211-226, December.
    3. Joosten, Reinoud & Talman, Dolf, 1998. "A globally convergent price adjustment process for exchange economies," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 15-26, January.
    4. Steven Gjerstad, 2013. "Price dynamics in an exchange economy," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 52(2), pages 461-500, March.
    5. Jean-Jacques Herings, P., 1997. "A globally and universally stable price adjustment process," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 163-193, March.
    6. Mukherji, Anjan, 2002. "An Introduction to General Equilibrium Analysis: Walrasian and Non-Walrasian Equilibria," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195659078, Decembrie.
    7. Smale, Steve, 1976. "A convergent process of price adjustment and global newton methods," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 107-120, July.
    8. 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.
    9. Blume, Lawrence E. & Easley, David & Kleinberg, Jon & Tardos, Éva, 2009. "Trading networks with price-setting agents," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 36-50, September.
    10. Van Der Laan, G. & Talman, A. J. J., 1987. "A convergent price adjustment process," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 119-123.
    11. Till Dueppe & E. Roy Weintraub, 2015. "Losing Equilibrium: On the Existence of Abraham Wald’s Fixed-Point Proof of 1935," Center for the History of Political Economy Working Paper Series 2015-4, Center for the History of Political Economy.
    12. Anderson, Christopher M. & Plott, Charles R. & Shimomura, K.-I.Ken-Ichi & Granat, Sander, 2004. "Global instability in experimental general equilibrium: the Scarf example," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 115(2), pages 209-249, April.
    13. Sean Crockett & Ryan Oprea & Charles Plott, 2011. "Extreme Walrasian Dynamics: The Gale Example in the Lab," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3196-3220, December.
    14. Herbert E. Scarf, 1967. "The Approximation of Fixed Points of a Continuous Mapping," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 216R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    15. Kamiya, Kazuya, 1990. "A Globally Stable Price Adjustment Process," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(6), pages 1481-1485, November.
    16. Rachel E. Kranton & Deborah F. Minehart, 2001. "A Theory of Buyer-Seller Networks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(3), pages 485-508, June.
    17. Mukherji, Anjan, 1974. "The Edgeworth-Uzawa Barter Stabilizes Prices," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 15(1), pages 236-241, February.
    18. David Gale, 1963. "A note on global instability of competitive equilibrium," Naval Research Logistics Quarterly, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 10(1), pages 81-87, March.
    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. Yuval Rabani & Leonard J. Schulman, 2016. "The Invisible Hand of Laplace: the Role of Market Structure in Price Convergence and Oscillation," Papers 1602.07628, arXiv.org.
    2. W D A Bryant, 2009. "General Equilibrium:Theory and Evidence," World Scientific Books, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., number 6875, January.
    3. Paul Oslington, 2012. "General Equilibrium: Theory and Evidence," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 88(282), pages 446-448, September.
    4. Joosten, Reinoud & Talman, Dolf, 1998. "A globally convergent price adjustment process for exchange economies," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 15-26, January.
    5. Anjan Mukherji, 2003. "Competitive Equilibria: Convergence, Cycles or Chaos," ISER Discussion Paper 0591, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    6. Aad Ruiter, 2020. "Approximating Walrasian Equilibria," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 55(2), pages 577-596, February.
    7. Herings, Jean-Jacques & van der Laan, Gerard & Venniker, Richard, 1998. "The transition from a Dreze equilibrium to a Walrasian equilibrium1," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 303-330, April.
    8. Denizalp Goktas & Jiayi Zhao & Amy Greenwald, 2023. "T\^atonnement in Homothetic Fisher Markets," Papers 2306.04890, arXiv.org.
    9. Anjan Mukherji, 2012. "The second fundamental theorem of positive economics," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 8(2), pages 125-138, June.
    10. Herings, P.J.J., 2024. "Globally and Universally Convergent Price Adjustment Processes," Discussion Paper 2024-001, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    11. Herings, P.J.J., 1994. "A globally and universally stable quantity adjustment process for an exchange economy with price rigidities," Other publications TiSEM 6f90d995-9065-4ad8-bd04-2, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    12. Alan Kirman, 2006. "Demand Theory and General Equilibrium: From Explanation to Introspection, a Journey down the Wrong Road," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 38(5), pages 246-280, Supplemen.
    13. Arkit, Aleksandra, 2003. "Globally stable price dynamics," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1-2), pages 27-38, February.
    14. Herings, P. Jean-Jacques & van der Laan, Gerard & Venniker, Richard, 1996. "The Transition from a Drèze Equilibrium to a Walrasian Equilibrium," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 1996013, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    15. Jean-Jacques Herings, P., 2002. "Universally converging adjustment processes--a unifying approach," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 341-370, November.
    16. Crockett, Sean & Friedman, Daniel & Oprea, Ryan, 2017. "Aggregation and convergence in experimental general equilibrium economies constructed from naturally occurring preferences," Discussion Papers, Research Professorship Market Design: Theory and Pragmatics SP II 2017-501, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    17. Herings,P. Jean-Jacques, 2000. "Universally Stable Adjustment Processes - A Unifying Approach -," Research Memorandum 006, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    18. van den Elzen, Antoon, 1997. "An adjustment process for the standard Arrow-Debreu model with production," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 315-324, April.
    19. Jean-Jacques Herings, P., 1997. "A globally and universally stable price adjustment process," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 163-193, March.
    20. Sean Crockett & Daniel Friedman & Ryan Oprea, 2021. "Naturally Occurring Preferences And General Equilibrium: A Laboratory Study," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(2), pages 831-859, May.

    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:eee:mateco:v:95:y:2021:i:c:s0304406821000136. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jmateco .

    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.