Decentralized Ecodynamics: An Alternative View

Aubin, J.-P. (1993). Decentralized Ecodynamics: An Alternative View. IIASA Working Paper. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: WP-93-045

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Abstract

It is known that the classical Walrasian tatonnement is neither viable nor necessarily asymptotically stable. This failure can be overcome, one can find a way to get out of this impasse of the orthodox economic theory, if we agree to perform some modifications of the mathematical translation of the basic ideas and to change the questions, as we shall explain in this paper.

Instead of starting with a supply and demand law such as the Walrasian tatonnement, even though it aggregates sensible individual behaviors, even though it is so seducing -- prices goes up when demand exceeds supply and go down when supply exceeds demand -- to be "believed" in, we propose to start with the actual behavior of consumers among which scarce resources have to be allocated and derive what are the supply and demand laws which allow an allocation decentralized by the prices. The supply and demand law is no longer a primitive of the model, but a conclusion, in a sense made precise later: the supply and demand law shall emerge from the confrontation of the diverse wishes of the consumers and the scarcity of available commodities.

The next problem we examine is then to select among such supply and demand laws compatible with the scarcity of constraints the ones which satisfy supplementary requirements. We shall suggest to choose the ones which satisfy the inertia principle, in the sense that prices evolve only when scarcity is at stakes.

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