Household Inefficiency and Equilibrium Efficiency

Summary

Collective consumption decisions taken by the members of a household may prove inefficient. The impact on market performance depends on whether household inefficiencies are caused by inefficient net trades with the market or by inefficient distribution of resources within households. Inefficient net trades might be consistent with global efficiency. Inefficient internal distribution always results in inefficient equilibrium allocations. This leads us to consider competitive forces as disciplinary device for households. Competition of households for both resources and members can eliminate or reduce inefficient internal distribution.

Sections 10.2 to 10.5 of this chapter are taken from Gersbach and Haller (2005). Section 6 contains further results obtained in Gersbach and Haller (2003). It addresses issues raised during seminar presentations at the University of Texas, Austin, and the Center for Economic Studies (CES), Munich. The hospitality and financial support of CES, the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS), Vienna, and the Institute of Economics, University of Copenhagen, is gratefully acknowledged. We thank Clive Bell for helpful comments and two referees for thoughtful suggestions.