Monopolistic Competition And General Equilibrium Theory

While traditional price theory has successfully elucidated national income distribution in a perfectly competitive economy, little is known today about the overall working of a noncompetitive economy. This book moves to remedy the imbalance by sketching a general equilibrium theory of a noncompetitive economy. Developing his theory in the world of the standard Leontief system, Hukukane Nikaido attempts to construct objective demand functions reflecting the interdependence of economic agents in the real world upon which the monopolist's control of prices or output ultimately depends. Originally published in 1975. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Economists such as Piero Sraffa, Joan Robinson, and Edward Chamberlin thus began to develop monopolistic competition theory in order to raise theory's empirical relevance as well as its analytical sharpness.

The development of general equilibrium theory represents one of the greatest advances in economic analysis in the latter half of the twentieth century. This book, intended for advanced undergraduates and graduate students, provides a broad introduction to competitive equilibrium analysis with an emphasis on concrete applications. The first three chapters are introductory in nature, paving the way for the more advanced second half of the book. Relative to the competition, it is much more 'user friendly' while offering exceptionally broad coverage of topics. Well-designed and interesting applications help to make potentially abstract material more accessible. The book includes 92 illustrations and nearly 200 exercises.