Modelling Supply and Demand

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In Book V of his Principles Alfred Marshall describes what he denominated “the state of arts” of the supply and demand theory, going back to Adam Smith. The assumptions then applied to the matter was that 1) demand comes first, 2) it is up to sellers to adjust supply to demand through production and marketing, a mix where the price is the most important variable, and 3) production takes time. Marshall summarized statement 2 later on into a single phrase: “Production and marketing are parts of the single process of adjustment of supply to demand” (MARSHALL, 1919, p. 181). This set of three assumptions suggests that the basic principles of the supply and demand theory collected by Marshall from the work by some scientists were then laid, requiring therefore only the right mathematical treatment. Marshall’s explanation of how producers decide is divided in two decision making functions: 1) the price bidding function and 2) the production level start up function. Producers do not impose prices; they propose list prices and buyers decide how much to buy at prices proposed, of course after some possible bargaining. All the same producers do not impose production levels, they invest with a production level target that sometime later may succeed or not. Both price and production follow demand in the same direction; if demand grows then producers observe that their individual inventories decrease and hence they, acting in cooperation or huge competition among them, raise their own prices and production levels. Next, each producer decide whether to accept the amount sold and keep the selling prices or to change bid prices and production levels again until a satisfactory, or inevitable, solution comes about. This satisfactory solution looks ... ... middle of paper ... ...d from observed exogenous variables' values that touch buyers and sellers. Works Cited NERSISYAN, Yeva and L. Randall Wray (2010). Deficit Hysteria Redux? Why We Should Stop Worrying About U.S. Government Deficits. Nova York: The Levy Economics Institute, Public Policy Brief, Nº. 111. http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/ppb_111.pdf. PHILLIPS, A. W. (1958). The Relation between Unemployment and the Rate of Change of Money Wage Rates in the United Kingdom, 1861-1957. Economica, New Series, Vol. 25, No. 100, pp. 283-299, November. Available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/2550759. ROBINSON, Joan (1965a), "Kalecki and Keynes". Collected Economic Papers, vol. III, pp. 92-9. ROBINSON, Joan (1965b). “The General Theory after Twenty-Five Years”. Collected Economic Papers, vol. III, pp. 100-2. SMITH, Adam (1776). “The Wealth of Nations”. The Modern Library, New York, 1937.

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