IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/15357.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Natural Selection, Irrationality and Monopolistic Competition

Author

Listed:
  • Luo, Guo Ying

Abstract

This paper builds an evolutionary model of an industry where firms produce differentiated products. Firms have different average cost functions and different demand functions. Firms are assumed to be totally irrational in the sense that firms enter the industry regardless of the existence of profits; firms' outputs are randomly determined rather than generated from profit maximization problems; and firms exit the industry if their wealth is negative. It shows that without purposive profit maximization assumption, monopolistic competition still evolves in the long run. The only long run survivors are those that possess the most efficient technology, face the most favorable market conditions and produce at their profit maximizing outputs. This paper modifies and supports the classic argument for the derivation of monopolistic competition.

Suggested Citation

  • Luo, Guo Ying, 2009. "Natural Selection, Irrationality and Monopolistic Competition," MPRA Paper 15357, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:15357
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/15357/1/MPRA_paper_15357.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. William Novshek, 1985. "On the Existence of Cournot Equilibrium," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(1), pages 85-98.
    2. Blume, Lawrence E. & Easley, David, 2002. "Optimality and Natural Selection in Markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 107(1), pages 95-135, November.
    3. Sidney G. Winter, 1964. "Economic "Natural Selection" and the Theory of the Firm," LEM Chapters Series, in: Yale Economic Essays, pages 225-272, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    4. Robson, Arthur J, 1990. "Stackelberg and Marshall," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 69-82, March.
    5. Armen A. Alchian, 1950. "Uncertainty, Evolution, and Economic Theory," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(3), pages 211-211.
    6. Prajit K. Dutta & Roy Radner, 1999. "Profit Maximization and the Market Selection Hypothesis," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(4), pages 769-798.
    7. Sidney G. Winter, 1971. "Satisficing, Selection, and the Innovating Remnant," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 85(2), pages 237-261.
    8. Arrow, Kenneth J, 1986. "Rationality of Self and Others in an Economic System," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(4), pages 385-399, October.
    9. Simon, Herbert A, 1979. "Rational Decision Making in Business Organizations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(4), pages 493-513, September.
    10. Luo Guo Ying, 1995. "Evolution and Market Competition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 223-250, October.
    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. Guo Ying Luo, 2019. "Evolution and monopolistic competition in an irrational industry," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 157-182, October.
    2. Luo, Guo Ying, 2009. "Irrationality and monopolistic competition: An evolutionary approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(5), pages 512-526, July.
    3. Beker, Pablo F., 2008. "Retained earnings dynamic, internal promotions and Walrasian equilibrium," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 114-156, March.
    4. Blume, Lawrence E. & Easley, David, 2002. "Optimality and Natural Selection in Markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 107(1), pages 95-135, November.
    5. Pascal Seppecher & Isabelle Salle & Dany Lang, 2019. "Is the market really a good teacher?," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 299-335, March.
    6. Sidney G. Winter, 2017. "Pursuing the evolutionary agenda in economics and management research," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 41(3), pages 721-747.
    7. Abhijit Banerjee & Jörgen W. Weibull & Ken Binmore, 1996. "Evolution and Rationality: Some Recent Game-Theoretic Results," International Economic Association Series, in: Beth Allen (ed.), Economics in a Changing World, chapter 4, pages 90-117, Palgrave Macmillan.
    8. Earl, Peter E., 2015. "Anchoring in economics: On Frey and Gallus on the aggregation of behavioural anomalies," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 9, pages 1-25.
    9. Kant, Shashi, 2003. "Extending the boundaries of forest economics," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 39-56, January.
    10. Pelikan, Pavel, 2006. "Markets vs. Government when Rationality Is Unequally Bounded: Some Consequences of Cognitive Inequalities for Theory and Policy," Ratio Working Papers 85, The Ratio Institute, revised 03 Sep 2006.
    11. Coad, Alex, 2010. "Neoclassical vs evolutionary theories of financial constraints: Critique and prospectus," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 206-218, August.
    12. Dosi, G. & Virgillito, M.E., 2021. "In order to stand up you must keep cycling: Change and coordination in complex evolving economies," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 353-364.
    13. Schipper, Burkhard C., 2009. "Imitators and optimizers in Cournot oligopoly," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(12), pages 1981-1990, December.
    14. Pavel Pelikán, 2010. "The Government Economic Agenda in a Society of Unequally Rational Individuals," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(2), pages 231-255, May.
    15. Jerker Denrell & Chengwei Liu & Gaël Mens, 2017. "When More Selection Is Worse," Strategy Science, INFORMS, vol. 2(1), pages 39-63, March.
    16. Gebhard Kirchgässner, 2013. "The Weak Rationality Principle in Economics," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 149(I), pages 1-26, March.
    17. Lasse B. Lien & Peter G. Klein, 2013. "Can the Survivor Principle Survive Diversification?," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(5), pages 1478-1494, October.
    18. Coad, Alex, 2007. "Testing the principle of `growth of the fitter': The relationship between profits and firm growth," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 370-386, September.
    19. Philippe Mongin, 1984. "Modèle rationnel ou modèle économique de la rationalité ?," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 35(1), pages 9-64.
    20. Alexander Matros, 2006. "Altruistic Versus Rational Behavior in a Public Good Game," Working Paper 309, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Sep 2008.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Evolution; Natural Selection; Irrationality; Monopolistic Competition; Survival of the Fittest; Market Rationality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection

    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:pra:mprapa:15357. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.