Chapter 19 Temporary general equilibrium theory

Traditional general equilibrium theory has, for a long time, studied an economic model that is essentially static, where the agent's expectations are self-fulfilling and the equilibrium is achieved solely by the price system. The chapter presents the conceptual framework underlying temporary equilibrium models. This chapter discusses the central role played by an agent's expectations in his or her decision-making process. This model is the microeconomic foundation of the whole theory. A few models using the temporary competitive equilibrium method are also studied in the chapter. It is postulated that prices move fast enough in each period to match supply and demand. The first problem studied is the issue of the existence of an equilibrium in asset markets that is very important in any theory of financial markets. In the framework of a simple model, a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a competitive equilibrium in asset markets is some partial agreement among economic agents concerning expected future spot prices of these assets. The chapter studies the temporary equilibrium with the quantity rationing method and to the possible contributions of this approach to the theory of employment and inflation. The basic axiom of this approach is that in the short run, quantities adjust infinitely faster than prices. One is thus led to study a model where prices are temporarily fixed in each period and equilibrium is achieved by quantity rationing. The chapter also presents an evaluation of the equilibrium concepts used in this area.