The Economics of Imperfect Competition
A Spatial Approach

This book takes a different approach to traditional price theory and to the analysis of imperfect competition.

Melvin L. Greenhut (Author), George Norman (Author), Chao-Shun Hung (Author)

9780521305525, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 January 1987

432 pages, 114 b/w illus. 20 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.9 cm, 0.8 kg

This book takes a different approach to traditional price theory and to the analysis of imperfect competition. It represented a breakthrough in the development of a 'new' microeconomic theory. Increasingly, it has been recognized that the perfectly competitive paradigm is inappropriate to the explanation of pricing behaviour in many 'real life' markets characterized by a significant separation between producers and consumers. The spatial perspective adopted by the authors provides a natural separation of markets, but provides as well a powerful analogy for apparently nonspatial issues such as product differentiation, pricing over time, problems of storage and transportation, and the economics of intraindustry trade and of the multinational enterprise. A major concern of The Economics of Imperfect Competition: A Spatial Approach is to make these analogies explicit by applying this spatial analysis to a wide variety of nonspatial problems.

List of figures and tables
Preface
1. Introduction
Part I. Nondiscriminatory Pricing: 2. A general theory of imperfect competition and nondiscriminatory pricing: the short run
3. A general theory of imperfect competition and nondiscriminatory pricing: the long run
4. Nondiscriminatory prices, economic development, and merger policies
5. Product differentiation: a spatial f.o.b. perspective
Part II. Discriminatory Pricing: 6. Discriminatory pricing and alternative demand conditions
7. Alternative pricing policies
8. Discriminatory pricing and market overlap
9. Intraindustry trade: a spatial approach
10. Optimal pricing with delivered-price or transport constraints
11. International and intranational pricing with a general cost function: an introduction to optimal-control theory
12. Dynamic market strategy: further application of optimal-control theory
13. Heterogeneous prices and heterogeneous goods
14. Empirical findings on alternative pricing policies: demand and competitive impacts
Part III. Pricing, Location, and Competition: 15. General location and market-area principles
16. Pricing, demand distribution, and location choice
17. Optimal location in nonspatial markets: a spatial approach
18. Competition, free entry, and long-run profit
19. An efficient long-run allocative equilibrium
20. Long-run locational equilibrium
21. Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Author index
Subject index.

Subject Areas: Microeconomics [KCC]