IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-01405306.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is individual rationality essential to market price formation? The contribution of zero‐intelligence agent trading models

Author

Listed:
  • Paola Tubaro

    (CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, University of Greenwich Business School - University of Greenwich)

Abstract

The paper investigates the minimum level of individual rationality that is needed for market prices to converge toward their equilibrium level. It does so by examining the theoretical and methodological foundations of the ‘zero‐intelligence' (ZI) agent trading approach, with which Gode and Sunder (1993a) claimed that weak individual rationality requirements suffice to obtain equilibrium prices. The paper shows that ZI agents are endowed with a higher degree of rationality than previously believed. Though not maximizing utility, they exhibit utility‐improving behavior, and their decision‐making rules fulfill important predictions of the theory of choice based on maximization, namely downward‐sloping individual demand and upward‐sloping individual supply. Additional cognitive skills would be required, were some simplifying assumptions of the basic model removed. Gode and Sunder's analysis supports a non‐neoclassical rational choice theory, in which optimization can be replaced by a variety of behavioral rules, while still preserving important results on the functioning of markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Paola Tubaro, 2009. "Is individual rationality essential to market price formation? The contribution of zero‐intelligence agent trading models," Post-Print hal-01405306, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01405306
    DOI: 10.1080/13501780802225528
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. J. Doyne Farmer & Paolo Patelli & Ilija I. Zovko, 2003. "The Predictive Power of Zero Intelligence in Financial Markets," Papers cond-mat/0309233, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2004.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Paola Tubaro, 2011. "Computational Economics," Chapters, in: John B. Davis & D. Wade Hands (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Recent Economic Methodology, chapter 10, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Moscati, Ivan & Tubaro, Paola, 2009. "Random behavior and the as-if defense of rational choice theory in demand experiments," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 27001, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Giuseppe Attanasi & Samuele Centorrino & Ivan Moscati, 2011. "Double Auction Equilibrium and Efficiency in a Classroom Experimental Search Market," LERNA Working Papers 11.03.337, LERNA, University of Toulouse.
    4. Brewer, Paul & Ratan, Anmol, 2019. "Profitability, efficiency, and inequality in double auction markets with snipers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 486-499.

    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. 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.
    2. Yariv, Leeat & Jackson, Matthew O., 2018. "The Non-Existence of Representative Agents," CEPR Discussion Papers 13397, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. SAITO Yukiko, 2013. "Role of Hub Firms in Geographical Transaction Network," Discussion papers 13080, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    4. Juan C. Henao-Londono & Sebastian M. Krause & Thomas Guhr, 2021. "Price response functions and spread impact in correlated financial markets," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 94(4), pages 1-20, April.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. SHIMAMOTO Daichi & Yu Ri KIM & TODO Yasuyuki, 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).
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. H. W. Arndt, 1984. "Political Economy," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 60(3), pages 266-273, September.
    15. 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.
    16. Delattre, Sylvain & Robert, Christian Y. & Rosenbaum, Mathieu, 2013. "Estimating the efficient price from the order flow: A Brownian Cox process approach," Stochastic Processes and their Applications, Elsevier, vol. 123(7), pages 2603-2619.
    17. Wang, Yougui & Stanley, H.E., 2009. "Statistical approach to partial equilibrium analysis," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 388(7), pages 1173-1180.
    18. 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.
    19. 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.
    20. Alex Coad & Christina Guenther, 2012. "Age, diversification and survival in the German machine tool industry, 1953-2002," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2011-23, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.

    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:hal:journl:hal-01405306. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.