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Copyright

Michael Richter; Ariel Rubinstein;

Published On

2024-11-13

Page Range

pp. 1–12

Language

  • English

Print Length

12 pages

0. Introduction

Chapter of: No Prices No Games!: Four Economic Models(pp. 1–12)
The stage on which this book's plots are set is a model called an economy. The model captures situations in which each agent in a society chooses an alternative and there exists a fundamental tension between the agents' personal desires and society-wide feasibility constraints. The chapter includes many examples of economies.
A candidate for an equilibrium includes two components:
(i) A profile of choices - one choice for each agent.
(ii) A specification of certain parameters that systematically influence either agents' choice problems or their preference relations.
In equilibrium, agents make individually optimal choices, and the parameters restrict their choice sets to be compatible, in the sense that the resulting profile of choices is feasible.
We provide an overview of the equilibrium concepts we study in the book. They are classified into two groups. In the choice group, each agent's choice set depends on a price-like equilibrium parameter, but not on the equilibrium profile of choices. In the deviation group, an equilibrium is a profile of choices which is immune to any single agent's deviation from his prescribed alternative to any other alternative in a set determined by the equilibrium parameters.

Contributors

Michael Richter

(author)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5220-9995

Michael Richter is a professor of Economics at Baruch College, City University of New York and Royal Holloway, University of London. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago (BS, Math) and New York University (PhD, Economics). His research interests are in microeconomic theory, particularly decision theory, general equilibrium, and search. He lives in New York, with his wife and two kids. For other works, the author’s website is: http://www.mrichter.co/

Ariel Rubinstein

(author)
Emeritus in School of Economics at Tel Aviv University
Professor of Economics at New York University
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1574-2659
https://arielrubinstein.org/

Ariel Rubinstein was born in Jerusalem and received his PhD from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1979. Has been a Professor at the Hebrew University and at Princeton and currently is a Professor (Emeritus) at Tel Aviv University and a Professor of Economics at New York University. He has served as the President of the Econometric Society (2004). He is a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Economic Association, an Elected Fellow of the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Elected Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. His 7 books reflect his research interests: Bargaining and Markets (with M. Osborne) (1990), A Course in Game Theory (with M. Osborne) (1994), Modeling Bounded Rationality (1998), Economics and Language (2000), Lecture Notes in Microeconomics (2005) and Models of Microeconomic Theory (with M.Osborne) (2020). His book Economic Fables (2012) presents his general views about Economic Theory. He created and manages the Atlas of Cafes (where one can think). All his books and articles are accessed through his homepage https://arielrubinstein.tau.ac.il.