Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/95174 
Year of Publication: 
1982
Series/Report no.: 
IUI Working Paper No. 63
Publisher: 
The Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IUI), Stockholm
Abstract: 
In this paper we extend models of “search market equilibrium” to incorporate general equilibrium considerations. The model we treat is one with a single product market and a single labor market. Imperfectly informed individuals follow optimal strategies in searching for a suitably low price and high wage. For any distribution of price and wage offers across firms these optimal strategies generate product demand and labor supply schedules. Firms then choose prices and wages to maximize expected profits taking these schedules as given, and the resulting profits are paid out to individuals as dividends. An equilibrium distribution of prices and wages is one which results from optimal price and wage setting behavior by firms given individuals optimal search strategies. There are two possible equilibrium configurations, a degenerate equilibrium in which all firms charge the same price and wage and a price and wage dispersion equilibrium. We show that there exists a degenerate equilibrium at the monopoly-monopsony price-wage combination. We also show some of the properties of a price-wage dispersion equilibrium, conditional on existence.
Subjects: 
General equilibrium
Singel product and labor market
Consumers
Firms
JEL: 
D40
D50
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
21.87 MB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.