The Frankel, Romer and Lucas theories of endogenous growth rest on the assumptions of knowledge-based externalities and price-taking representative agents. It is argued that, in a context of long-run growth, these assumptions are mutually incompatible, that representative agents will cooperate...

In his inaugural lecture of 1953 Hicks conjectured that any uniform expansion of a country's production set would benefit its trading partner. Corden and Ikema later provided conditions on that country's consumption which, if added to Hicks' condition on production, would validate Hicks'...

The Torrens-Ricardo Principle of Comparative Advantage rests on the special assumptions that, both in autarky and under free trade, all countries can produce all commodities and that, in autarkic equilibrium, each country consumes all producible commodities, at least incipiently. We reformulate...

The classical gains-from-trade conjecture was finally given a thorough Arrow-Debreu proof in 1972. Since then, the proposition has been repeatedly challenged. Some of the challenges rest on grounds which in no respect violate Arrow-Debreu assumptions. Those challenges are therefore without...

It is argued that the task of describing the optimal vector of commodity taxes is trivialized by the traditional assumption of a price-taking representative agent; that, in particular, the assumption of a representative agent ensures that the null vector is optimal. Copyright © 2007 The...