"Mrs. Robinson's "Economics of Imperfect Competition

RECOGNITION that the unrealistic assumptions in regard to the nature of competition form one of the main deficiencies of the traditional theory of value, and are directly responsible for some of the apparent inconsistencies between the conclusions of theory and experience, constitutes one of the most significant advances of post-War economic thought. Traditional theory-tacitly rather than explicitly-was built upon the assumption that the elasticity of demand for the product of an individual producer with respect to the price charged by any other producer is either zero or infinite. In reality it is neither. Different producers are not selling either identical or different products, but more or less different products-the demand confronting them being neither completely sensitive nor completely unsensitive to the prices charged by other producers. This necessitates a new analysis of the determination of value; and Mrs. Robinson sets out in this book to provide us with such an analysis. But the performance at once exceeds and falls short of the promise; the contents of the book cover a field different from that which we were led to expect from the title page. She neglects the intricate problem of the interaction of the price and output policy of rival producers and the dependence of each producer's equilibrium position on his own anticipation of this interaction (usually called the problems of duopoly ) altogether; although these ought to occupy a central position in the treatment of any competitive situation which can rightly call itself imperfect, and she also excludes marketing costs from consideration-by the simple device of deducting such expenditures from the producer's demand curve-although, whatever views one may hold about these, there can be little doubt that their emergence is one of the most characteristic features of an imperfect market. Under the circumstances it is not surprising that her book-after a most intriguing introductory chapter giving all the reasons for the necessity of a new approach to the theory of value-inevitably becomes a treatise on monopoly; a treatise most admirable in its lucidity, sharpness and the wealth 1 The Economics of Imperfect Competition. By Joan Robinson. Macmillan, 1933. xii + 352 pp

Competition (biology) · Cournot competition · Duopoly · Economics · Imperfect competition · Mathematical economics · Microeconomics · Neoclassical economics · Position (finance) · Price elasticity of demand · Product (mathematics) · Value (mathematics) · Economic Theory and Institutions · Mathematics

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