Questions tagged [pareto-efficiency]
An efficiency standard based on the idea that the most efficient outcomes are those where no individual can be made better-off without making at least one other worse-off.
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Efficiency in a market that is both a monopoly and a monopsony
We know that market power in general leads inefficient outcomes (in terms of Pareto efficiency). This makes instinctive appeal as, for example, a powerful seller who has a lot of market power can ...
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1answer
47 views
Do points inside the PPF curve always mean productive inefficiency?
If a firm produces combinations of goods along the PPF curve, it has achieved its productive efficiency. And when a firm reaches productive efficiency, it means that all factors of production have ...
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1answer
60 views
Pareto Improvement with Monopolies
This may be one of the more 'elementary' questions on this site.. But I really can't wrap my head around it and a search on the web hasn't yielded much.
Given that Pareto efficiency is defined as when ...
2
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1answer
41 views
Counter example for strong and weak Pareto optimality
We know that strong Pareto efficient is equivalent to weak Pareto efficient if we have continuous and strongly monotone preferences.
Please give me an example which we don’t have continuous and ...
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0answers
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Price equilibria with transfers
I am pretty new to Microeconomics so please bear with me if I am missing something obvious.
I am solving the following problem:
The question is in the setting of pure exchange economy with two ...
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1answer
24 views
Finding Pareto efficiency with negative externalities
Student S has one hobby of listening to music. The noise of the speaker can produce noise up to 100 decibels (measured by D). Her money is measured by Ms . Her utility function is Us = 10D1/2 + Ms
...
4
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1answer
47 views
Adverse Selection: Positive Selection of Worker Types (Mas-Collel)
I'm reviewing some question from Mas-Collel and I am stuck on a chapter 13 question related to adverse selection.
Consider a model of positive selection in which there are workers of two possible ...
2
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1answer
38 views
How did Pareto came up with Pareto Distribution of wealth law?
I am not an economist but a mathematics student. I heard about the Pareto law - the mathematical modelling of the distribution of wealth, how did Pareto come up with this law? technically speaking ...
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1answer
53 views
Pareto efficiency of organ markets
Organ sale is legal in Iran. I was wondering: are organ markets Pareto efficient? Or could an argument be made for them being Pareto efficient? I have been thinking that both the buyer and the seller ...
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2answers
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If the government builds a bridge, how do we know it's the best possible usage of real resources (i.e. steel, labor, etc) at the time?
I would assume the "goal" of any economic activity is to make the largest amount of people the "happiest" -- i.e. Pareto Efficiency or sum-total 'utility.'
How do we know if this ...
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1answer
139 views
Pareto efficiency and maximization of sum of utilities
I'm trying to understand the relation between maximizing sum of utilities and finding Pareto efficient allocations. According to https://econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/Courses/UCSBpf/pflectures/chap2.pdf (page ...
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Pareto efficiency analysis of level of M1 growth from quantitative easing
BMO recently conducted an analysis on US monetary policy and noted that quantitative easing has had diminishing effects on M1 growth. Daniel Krieter wrote:
QE has fed through to the real economy in a ...
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1answer
28 views
Efficiency in Auctions
Consider a finite number of bidders, each bidding for a single indivisible object, with private independent values from some probability distribution.
There are 2 intuitive notions of (ex-post) ...
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Identify the Pareto welfare weights
I am asked to identify the Pareto welfare weights from the FOC of the following problem
$max_{{x_1}{x_2}} U_1(x_1)\ st\ u_2=U_2(x_2)\ and\ x_{1n}+x_{2n}=yn$
The Langrangian is: $L=U_1(x_1)+\lambda_1(...
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0answers
43 views
Pareto Set with strictly convex preferences
Suppose the agents A and B have the following utility functions $x_A y_A+12x_A+3y_A $ and $x_By_B +8x_B+9y_B$ respectively with endowments (8,30) and (10,10).
The contract curve's equation turns out ...
4
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1answer
102 views
Contract curve and Pareto frontier
Consider an exchange economy with two agents.
Each agent $i \in \{1,2\}$ derives utility $u^i(x_1,x_2) \in \mathbb R$ by consuming $(x_1,x_2) \in \mathbb R_+^2$.
Let $u_j^i(x_1,x_2) = \partial u^i(...
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2answers
171 views
How can an outcome be Pareto efficient but not Kaldor-Hicks efficient?
An policy is a Pareto improvement if it makes some people better off and no one worse off. And a policy is a Kaldor-Hicks improvement if it can be turned into a Pareto improvement by redistributing ...
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A problem: allocation of apartments
Setup: Trine owns an apartment in Copenhagen. She is willing to rent
it out at any positive price. Peter and Simon
lives together and are both students. They will like to rent the apartment for less ...
0
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1answer
101 views
Efficiency conditions for externalities
I have a 2 consumer 2 goods economy. Both the goods produce an externality for the other consumer, therefore, they are a part of the other's utility function. How do I show that despite the ...
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3answers
493 views
What's the opposite of a Pareto improvement called?
Wikipedia defines a Pareto Improvement, "given a certain initial allocation of goods among a set of individuals" as:
a change to a different allocation that makes at least one individual or ...
0
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1answer
227 views
Why is market equilibrium pareto efficient?
Let us assume that the current price $P$ is lower than the 'equilibrium price' $P^\star$ so that $Q$ is lower than $Q^\star$. If we move from this combination towards the equilibrium one, it may be ...
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1answer
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What is the difference between a power law exponent and the Pareto exponent?
I use the poweRlaw package in R to fit a power law to my data. I am trying to figure out what is the value of the Pareto exponent.
Assume the probability mass function is defined by:
$$
p(x) = \...
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1answer
528 views
Difference between Nash equilibrium and Pareto Efficiency
Nash Equilibrium is defined as a solution concept referring to a best outcome which players won't want to unilaterally deviate given the response of other players doesn't change. To me it seems like ...
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1answer
94 views
Pareto Efficient level of Public Good
As part of self study towards an entrance exam, I am solving the following question.
There are two consumers in the economy and two goods, one private and one public. The utilities of the consumers ...
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2answers
240 views
robinson economy with production
Facing a little bit of a problem with this questions, did a similar one BUT the utility function was not linear and got MRS dependent on goods (was not just a number) - here I am at a loss.
The ...
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1answer
213 views
Utility Possibility Frontier with two consumers and 3 commodities
I am trying to solve the following problem:
Consider a pure exchange economy with three commodities and two households with individual endowments:
$$e_1=(1,2,3), e_2=(3,2,1),$$
respectively, and ...
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1answer
123 views
Computing the competitive equilibrium given initial allocation
Suppose that there are two agents, 1 and 2, and two goods, honey (h) and lemon (l), and that the agents' preferences over these goods are defined by the following utility functions:
$$u^1(x_h^1, x_l^...
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1answer
93 views
Walrasian Equilibrium intuition given prices and some initial allocation
Suppose we have two agents who are each assigned some initial allocation of two different goods, where the prices of each good are given. Also, suppose the utility functions for each agent are weakly ...
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1answer
106 views
SPNE and Pareto Optimality
"The SPNE of a sequential game might not necessarily be Pareto Optimal"
I understand the definitons of Nash Equilibria and Pareto Optimality and that these are not synonymous concepts. An example in ...
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1answer
307 views
Solving for Pareto Efficient Utility Possibility Frontier using constrained optimisation
The economy is a one-good two individual endowment economy in which individual $i’s$ preferences are given by $𝑈_𝑖(𝑥_𝑖)=𝑥_𝑖$, for 𝑖∈1,2, and the feasibility constraint on the amount of x ...
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1answer
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Definition of Pareto efficiency and prisoner's dilemma
Pareto efficiency is defined in Wikipedia as:
Pareto efficiency or Pareto optimality is a state of allocation of
resources from which it is impossible to reallocate so as to make any
one ...
0
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1answer
122 views
Solution to maximization not Pareto efficient
In my economics class, we saw a proof that if an allocation $ ((\hat x_h), (\hat y_f)), h\in H$ (the set of households), $f\in F$ (the set of firms) is Pareto optimal/efficient, it must necessarily be ...
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0answers
129 views
Pareto Efficiency Outcomes in Games
I have started studying the Pareto efficiency notion in Game theory. The definition I am familiar with is this:
Strategy profile $\mathbf{s}$ Pareto dominates strategy $\mathbf{s}'$ if for all $i\in\...
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1answer
44 views
Why do we have to normalize the income of consumers when working with an Edgeworth Box in a simple trade model with Pareto optima?
I was studying microeconomics and I confess I am not the brightest person for maths and sorry if this is very dumb but I get that we CAN normalize the income and I get where it comes from and how it ...
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2answers
616 views
Pareto set with Cobb-Douglas and Leontief preferences
If $U_A(x_A,y_A)=x_Ay_A$ and $U_B(x_B,y_B)=min(x_B,y_B)$ and the total endowments are (8,4), is the Pareto set given by the line joining the kinks of B (black line shown in the diagram)? Shouldn't the ...
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1answer
322 views
Pareto set and Edgeworth box
General equilibrium framework; two individuals, two goods represented in an Edgeworth box.
Is it true that if the preference are both strongly monotonic the Pareto set will go from the origin of an ...
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2answers
610 views
Pareto Optimality of Endowments
Consider a $2*2$ exchange economy where individual $1$ has an endowment $(4,5)$ and individual 2 has an endowment $(6,5)$.
The utility functions of individuals are represented by $U({x}_i{y}_i)$=${x}...
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1answer
227 views
Blocking Coalitions
For $n$ individuals, can a blocking coalition only be formed by at least $n/2$ individuals? For example, if there are 6 individuals, can less than 3 individuals form blocking coalitions?
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1answer
527 views
Why is Pareto efficiency not always equitable or equilibrium?
Just for information. I think we can agree on that a Pareto optimal allocation is where you cannot put someone in a better position without making someone else worse off. I know that any competitive ...
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1answer
241 views
How does elasticity impact market efficiency?
I am wondering how the price elasticity of demand (or supply) impacts market efficiency. A more specific question - can we say that in a monopolized market elasticity will be low, and that in a ...
0
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1answer
40 views
Are slacks the same as mix-inefficiency?
On the diagram below it is stated that A' has input slacks as it could reduce the amount of $x_2$ and still be on the frontier (by moving to C). However I recall mix-inefficiency having a similar ...
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2answers
273 views
Inclusion of firms on the efficient frontier of a Production Possibility Set
I'm working through Cooper's Data Envelopment Analysis, and they are going over Production Possibility Sets.
They present 9 firms, each with two inputs and one output:
Graphically it easy to see why ...
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2answers
826 views
How to calculate Pareto Optimal outcome in a game with a Nash Equilibrium
I have at hand a two period game.
In period 1, Union decides wage offer $w$.
In period 2, firm decides on L, given wage.
Union maximizes $wL$
Firm maximizes $=(L(100-L) - wL) \quad if \quad L&...
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0answers
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If US capital income taxation were eliminated, which ordinary income tax brackets would be equally progressive?
This question only considers federal taxes in the United States. Also, by "capital income" I am including dividends, interest, capital gains, corporate incomes and estates.
The Chamley-Judd result ...
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Do I understand the second welfare theorem correctly?
As far as I understand, the second welfare theorem says that all Pareto-optimal allocations can be reached by market equilibrium on free competitive markets.
Yet it seems that this understanding is ...
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1answer
2k views
Are there any real world examples of potential Pareto improvements?
Professor George Fallis in his book "Housing Economics" writes when discussing the notion of a Pareto improvement
(Page 123)
In the real world, almost all policies recommended by economists ...
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1answer
265 views
Pareto efficient adverse selection
Please look at the following. Question which I posted.
I did not understand the answer for the part b - Pareto efficient.
I am happy if you explain it in more details. Thank you.
Also please ...
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1answer
186 views
The social welfare of a unique general competitive equilibrium in an exchange economy
The first theorem of welfare economics states that "Every Walrasian Equilibrium (WE) is Pareto Efficient (PE)" - Microeconomic Theory Nicholson, Synder 11th ed. p477. But PE is quite a weak condition. ...
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1answer
475 views
Bertrand-equilibrium with discrete price set
Consider a market for a homogenous product with three producers, firms A, B and
C. The firms have constant marginal costs which are equal to $c = 20$ for each firm. Consumers always buy from the firrm ...
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1answer
1k views
Is the convexity of production sets necessary for the welfare theorems?
I have read that the convexity of production sets (for instance non-increasing returns to scale) is not a necessary assumption for the first welfare theorem but it is for the second welfare theorem. ...
