IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/koc/wpaper/1219.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Conflict Between General Equilibrium and the Marshallian Cross

Author

Listed:
  • Ismail Saglam

    (Department of Economics, TOBB University of Economics and Technology)

  • Asad Zaman

    (International Institute of Islamic Economics, International Islamic University)

Abstract

There is a conflict in the mechanism for price determination used in a Marshallian partial equilibrium supply and demand framework and the Walrasian general equilibrium framework. It is generally thought that partial equilibrium is a simplified approximation to the complexities of the general model. The goal of this paper is to show that there is a strong conflict between the two models - intuitions and heuristics suggested by partial equilibrium are contradicted by extensions to the general equilibrium case. We review the literature on the conflict and also provide a very simple model where partial equilibrium analysis fails completely. Several intuitively plausible remedies fail to restore partial equilibrium results. We show that Marshallian analysis can be made to work only under rather stringent conditions requiring joint production with low fixed costs and decreasing returns resulting in identical production proportions by all producers.

Suggested Citation

  • Ismail Saglam & Asad Zaman, 2012. "The Conflict Between General Equilibrium and the Marshallian Cross," Koç University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum Working Papers 1219, Koc University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum.
    • Handle: RePEc:koc:wpaper:1219
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eaf.ku.edu.tr/sites/eaf.ku.edu.tr/files/erf_wp_1219.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Steedman, Ian, 1988. "Sraffian Interdependence and Partial Equilibrium Analysis," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 12(1), pages 85-95, March.
    2. Avi J. Cohen, 2003. "Retrospectives: Whatever Happened to the Cambridge Capital Theory Controversies?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 199-214, Winter.
    3. Bradford, David F., 1978. "Factor prices may be constant but factor returns are not," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 199-203.
    4. A. Cohen & G. Harcourt., 2009. "Whatever Happened to the Cambridge Capital Theory Controversies?," VOPROSY ECONOMIKI, N.P. Redaktsiya zhurnala "Voprosy Economiki", vol. 8.
    5. Mas-Colell, Andreu & Whinston, Michael D. & Green, Jerry R., 1995. "Microeconomic Theory," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195102680.
    6. Lee, Frederic S, 1981. "The Oxford Challenge to Marshallian Supply and Demand: The History of the Oxford Economists' Research Group," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 33(3), pages 339-351, November.
    7. Kane, John, 1997. "Myth and measurement: The new economics of the minimum wage : David Card and Alan B. Krueger, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1995, x + 422," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 219-222.
    8. Xavier Vives, 1987. "Small Income Effects: A Marshallian Theory of Consumer Surplus and Downward Sloping Demand," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 54(1), pages 87-103.
    9. Frederic Lee & Steve Keen, 2004. "The Incoherent Emperor: A Heterodox Critique of Neoclassical Microeconomic Theory," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 62(2), pages 169-199.
    10. Ozanne, Adam, 1996. "Do Supply Curves Slope Up? The Empirical Relevance of the Sraffian Critique of Neoclassical Production Economics," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 20(6), pages 749-762, November.
    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. Lima, Gerson P., 2015. "Supply and Demand Is Not a Neoclassical Concern," MPRA Paper 63135, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Mehmet Karacuka & Asad Zaman, 2012. "The empirical evidence against neoclassical utility theory: a review of the literature," International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 3(4), pages 366-414.

    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. Miyake, Mitsunobu, 2006. "On the applicability of Marshallian partial-equilibrium analysis," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 176-196, September.
    2. Kivisto, Hanna, 2016. "Capital as Power and the Corporatization of Education," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 1-17.
    3. Don Fullerton & Chi L. Ta, 2017. "Public Finance in a Nutshell: A Cobb Douglas Teaching Tool for General Equilibrium Tax Incidence and Excess Burden," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 70(1), pages 155-170, March.
    4. Tae-Hee Jo, 2021. "A Veblenian Critique of Nelson and Winter’s Evolutionary Theory," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(4), pages 1101-1117, October.
    5. Eladio Febrero & Maria-Angeles Cadarso, 2006. "Pay-As-You-Go versus funded systems. Some critical considerations," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(3), pages 335-357.
    6. Bergheim, Stefan, 2007. "Pair-wise cointegration in long-run growth models," Research Notes 24, Deutsche Bank Research.
    7. Hosseiny, Ali & Gallegati, Mauro, 2017. "Role of intensive and extensive variables in a soup of firms in economy to address long run prices and aggregate data," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 470(C), pages 51-59.
    8. Peter Spahn, 2007. "Real Interest Rates, Intertemporal Prices and Macroeconomic Stabilization A Journey Through the History of Economic Thought," Diskussionspapiere aus dem Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre der Universität Hohenheim 292/2007, Department of Economics, University of Hohenheim, Germany.
    9. Nadia Garbellini, 2018. "Inequality in the 21st Century:A Critical Analysis of Piketty`s Work," Working Papers Series 69, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    10. Dalgaard, Carl-Johan & Strulik, Holger, 2011. "Energy distribution and economic growth," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 782-797.
    11. Hayashi, Takashi, 2008. "A note on small income effects," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 360-379, March.
    12. Guillaume Daudin, 2006. "Paying Transaction Costs," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2006-14, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    13. Robert L. Vienneau, 2005. "On Labour Demand And Equilibria Of The Firm," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 73(5), pages 612-619, September.
    14. Kurose, Kazuhiro & Yoshihara, Naoki, 2016. "The Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson Model and the Cambridge Capital Controversies," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2016-05, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    15. Jesus Felipe & F. Gerard Adams, 2005. ""A Theory of Production" The Estimation of the Cobb-Douglas Function: A Retrospective View," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 31(3), pages 427-445, Summer.
    16. Paul Oslington, 2012. "General Equilibrium: Theory and Evidence," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 88(282), pages 446-448, September.
    17. Gracia, Eduard, 2011. "Uncertainty and capacity constraints: Reconsidering the aggregate production function," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 5, pages 1-50.
    18. Amir, Rabah & Evstigneev, Igor V., 2018. "A new look at the classical Bertrand duopoly," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 99-103.
    19. van Suntum, Ulrich, 2008. "Dynamic efficiency and reswitching," CAWM Discussion Papers 8, University of Münster, Münster Center for Economic Policy (MEP).
    20. Kyle Glenn, 2021. "How Do We Choose? Towards an Alternative Theory of Consumer Behavior," Working Papers 2114, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:koc:wpaper:1219. 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: Sumru Oz (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dekoctr.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.