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The Market: How it Actually Works

Explore the inner workings of the market and understand its virtues, inefficiencies, and impact on freedom and social values. Learn about market failures, concentrated economic power, negative externalities, short time horizons, and the provision of public goods.

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The Market: How it Actually Works

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  1. Lectures 4 & 5 September 13 & 18, 2012 The Market: How it Actually Works

  2. Note: Correction in the book, p. 60 The first line of indented material should read: “…and 2 years if I stay silent.”

  3. Summary from last lecture: • Four Virtues of Markets • Freedom: Markets are an expression of the value of individual freedom: exchanges are voluntary • Coordination of complex systems: Markets accomplish this remarkable result through supply, demand and the price mechanism. • Efficiency: Unfettered markets result in allocative efficiency (“Pareto Optimality”) • Innovation and Growth: Markets create strong incentives for risk-taking and innovation

  4. I. The Market & Freedom Negative Freedom: “Freedom from” = no one can physically force you to do things. Positive Freedom: “Freedom to” = the actual capacity to do things, to realize your goals Conclusion 1: The market is a pretty good institution for partially realizing negative freedom. No one directly forces you to buy something. Conclusion 2: Employees lose negative freedom within work. Conclusion 3: The free market generates great inequalities in positive freedom – it is enhances it for some people and undermines it for others.

  5. II. THE PRAGMATIC ISSUE: INEFFICIENCY & MARKET FAILURES Sources of Market Inefficiency #1 Faulty consumer information Markets only allocate products efficiently if people have perfect information about what they buy, but this is often very difficult for consumers, especially because firms have incentives to distort information.

  6. The Case of the Ford Pinto (late 1960s) The problem: because of faulty placement of gas tanks, tendency for cars to explode in some rear-end collisions Cost of change: roughly $11/car Ford’s calculation: more profitable not to make the change. Ford’s strategy: obstruct accountability and regulation Results: the legislation to require higher safety standards was delayed from 1961 to 1966 and effective implementation of regulations delayed until 1977. Hundreds of lives lost as a result.

  7. Sources of Market Inefficiency #2 Concentrated Economic Power Allocative efficiency depends on perfect competition, but American capitalism is dominated by giant corporations, and giant corporations exert real power pver firms and individuals in markets.

  8. Sources of Market Inefficiency #3 Negative Externalities Market efficiency depends on prices reflecting the true costs of producing things, but firms often systematically displace costs and risks on others in many ways. Definition: a negative side-effect of an activity that affects other people.

  9. Sources of Market Inefficiency #4 Short Time Horizons Competition among profit-maximizing firms leads firms to have relatively short time-horizons. This imposes costs on future generations for our present production and consumption. (Intergenerational negative externalities).

  10. Sources of Market Inefficiency #5 Under-provision of Public Goods Profit-maximizing firms in competitive markets will fail to produce adequate public goods, even those public goods which are necessary for maintaining healthy markets. Definition of Public Goods: a public good is a good which, if it is produced, provides a benefit to people even if they do not pay for it.

  11. THE PRISONERS DILEMMA Self-interested preference ordering for X: B>A>D>C

  12. THE TRADGEDY OF THE COMMONS Your self-interested preference ordering : B>A>D>C

  13. Free-riding & Public Goods problem: Firms Providing Training for Workers Training costs = $10,000 Extra Gross Profits with trained workers = $30,000 Net extra profits if you provide training and keep workers = $20,000 Net extra profits if you provide training and workers leave = -$10,000

  14. Contrast: Negative Externalities vs Free-rider Problem Negative externalities: I benefit from imposing costs on you. Free-riding problem for public goods: Everyone is harmed – including me – because of free-riding, but I am even worse off if I individually refuse to free-ride. This is a “Pareto suboptimal” situation.

  15. Solutions to Free-rider Problem Government provision of public goods Instead of relying on the market, the government blocks free-riders through regulations and government provision of public goods paid by taxation. Conditional Altruism: People may not be purely selfish and can want to cooperate, thus their preference ordering is not like the prisoner’s dilemma.

  16. CONDITIONAL ALTRUISM and THE TRADGEDY OF THE COMMONS Your self-interested preference ordering: B>A>D>C Conditional Altruist (cooperative) preferences: A>B>D>C

  17. III. The Free Market & Social Values • Key idea: institutions shape values • Effects of under-regulated markets on salient values: • Erosion of community • Commercialization of morally salient aspects of life • Skills of “exit” and “voice”

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