Econometrica Vol. 68 No. 4 2000
The Monotonicity of Individual and Market Demand
Abstract
This paper studies the monotonicity of individual and market demand with the aid of the indirect utility function. We identify sufficient (and in a sense, necessary) conditions on an agent's indirect utility which will guarantee that he has a monotonic demand function. Our conditions also point to a natural way of extending the result of Hildenbrand (1983). Hildenbrand showed that market demand is monontonic if the income distribution has a downward sloping density, even though individual agents' demand function might violate monotonicity. Using the indirect utility function, we introduce a measure of violations of individual monotonicity that allows us to identify a larger class of density functions that will generate a monotonic market demand.
- DOI
- 10.1111/1468-0262.00141
- Volume
- 68
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 911-930
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref