Knowledge that Transforms

This paper surveys some recent studies of economies where trading takes place sequentially over time, and where each agent makes decisions at every date in the light of his expectations about his future environment, which are functions of his information on the present and past states of the economy. The paper reviews particularly the issues raised by arbitrage in capital markets, by the consideration of money and banking activities, and by the introduction of production in temporary competitive equilibrium models. A thorough investigation of the logic of temporary equilibrium models with quantity rationing is also offered, as well as a quick review of the study of stochastic processes of temporary equilibria.

[The finite sample behavior in a dynamic, simultaneous system of least squares and instrumental variables estimators which allow for autoregressive errors is studied by control variable (CV) simulation. To increase simulation precision, the CV's are based on asymptotic approximations to the econometric estimators and so have the same asymptotic distributions, but known finite sample moments. The CV formulae also clarify the properties of the econometric techniques and combined with response surfaces, reduce the specificity of simulation findings. The results confirm the value of asymptotic theory and show that the autoregressive instrumental variables estimator provides a reasonable approach to the simultaneity-autocorrelation-dynamics interaction.]

E. B. Keeler, J. P. Newhouse, C. E. Phelps, Deductibles and the Demand for Medical Care Services: The Theory of a Consumer Facing a Variable Price Schedule under Uncertainty, Econometrica, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Apr., 1977), pp. 641-656

[Social choice lottery rules are analyzed for two-candidate elections with voters who may be uncertain about whom they prefer. A voter's uncertainty is reflected by a nonobservable choice probability of voting for candidate A rather than candidate B, given that he votes. Lottery rules are based on the votes for A and B; they are to be monotonic and symmetric in voters and in candidates. Given n voters, all lottery rules are convex combinations of about n/2 basic rules ranging from the coin-flip rule to simple majority. Candidate A's win probability and two measures of expected voter satisfaction are examined as functions of the individuals' choice probabilities and the lottery rules. Comparisons are made between simple majority and the proportional lottery rule which assigns social choice probability of j/n to A when A gets j of n votes. Each of simple majority and the proportional lottery rule satisfies attractive properties that are not satisfied by the other rule.]

[Proposals for the computation of competitive equilibria in the presence of taxation contained in recent joint work by the author are applied to a model of the United Kingdom economy and tax system for the period 1968-1970. Difficulties of model specification and parameterization are also discussed. Results provide indications of efficiency, distributional, and welfare impacts for a number of alternative tax changes.]

[The existence of an equilibrium solution for the open expanding economy model of Morgenstern-Thompson is proven under weaker assumptions than originally used.The proof is based on a theorem of the Farkas type formulated for finite dimensional linear spaces ordered by means of cones.]

[We construct a monthly model of supply and demand for chartered banks' loans to business firms in Canada. Recent disequilibrium econometric methods are used to take into account possibilities of rationing.]

IN THEIR INTERESTING PAPER, External Diseconomies in Consumption and Monopoly Pricing [3], I. Luski and R. Lusky (LL) have presented a result concerning the respective value of the monopoly price and the socially optimal price of a private good, the consumption of which inflicts external diseconomies. But their presentation is incomplete because they consider a model with only one good freely available, forget to take into account the distribution of income, and limit the proof of the main theorem to a special case. These deficiencies make appreciation of the validity of the result difficult. We shall discuss here the same problem in the framework of the simplest consistent model.