IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/col/000089/019423.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Theorem of the Law of Demand

Author

Listed:
  • Hernán Vallejo

Abstract

This article proves that at the level of an individual ceteris paribus, when the endowments of goods in general -and of time in particular-, are taken into account, a good has to comply with the Law of Demand if it is normal and its excess demand is positive, or if it is inferior and its excess demand is negative. This result holds even if either the substitution effect is zero; or the excess demand and=or the income effect are zero; but not otherwise. This article also outlines other conditions under which a good will not comply with the Law of Demand, by being Giffen or perfectly inelastic to its price. It is proved that the widespread idea that a Giffen good has to be an inferior good applies only to the cases where the excess demand of such good, is positive. It is also argued that accounting for Veblen goods may require considering other determinants of the demand function, beyond the ones considered in this article

Suggested Citation

  • Hernán Vallejo, 2021. "A Theorem of the Law of Demand," Documentos CEDE 19423, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    • Handle: RePEc:col:000089:019423
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repositorio.uniandes.edu.co/bitstream/handle/1992/50543/dcede2021-33.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grandmont, Jean-Michel, 1987. "Distributions of Preferences and the 'Law of Demand.'," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(1), pages 155-161, January.
    2. Hernán Vallejo, 2021. "Not all Giffen Goods, are Inferior Goods," Documentos CEDE 19138, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    3. Mas-Colell, Andreu & Whinston, Michael D. & Green, Jerry R., 1995. "Microeconomic Theory," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195102680.
    4. Wagner, Alfred, 1891. "Marshall's Principles of Economics," History of Economic Thought Articles, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, vol. 5, pages 319-338.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daniel McFadden, 2014. "The new science of pleasure: consumer choice behavior and the measurement of well-being," Chapters, in: Stephane Hess & Andrew Daly (ed.), Handbook of Choice Modelling, chapter 2, pages 7-48, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Heckman, James & Pinto, Rodrigo, 2015. "Causal Analysis After Haavelmo," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 31(1), pages 115-151, February.
    3. Parenti, Mathieu & Ushchev, Philip & Thisse, Jacques-François, 2017. "Toward a theory of monopolistic competition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 86-115.
    4. Colander, David & Rothschild, Casey, 2010. "Sins of the Sons of Samuelson: Vision, pedagogy, and the zig-zag windings of complex dynamics," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 74(3), pages 277-290, June.
    5. Di Vita, Giuseppe, 2001. "Are the outputs derived from secondary materials giffen goods?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 255-260, December.
    6. Francisco Galera & Pedro Garcia-del-Barrio & Pedro Mendi, 2019. "Consumer surplus bias and the welfare effects of price discrimination," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 55(1), pages 33-45, February.
    7. Baumgärtner, Stefan & Quaas, Martin, 2010. "Sustainability economics -- General versus specific, and conceptual versus practical," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(11), pages 2056-2059, September.
    8. Chechelski, Piotr & Grochowska, Renata & Łopaciuk, Wiesław & Ślązak, Emil & Wasilewski, Adam & Wigier, Marek, 2012. "Development est public policy support in the food economy – the example of Poland," Multiannual Program Reports 164845, Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics - National Research Institute (IAFE-NRI).
    9. Donald J. Brown & Caterina Calsamiglia, 2014. "Alfred Marshall’s cardinal theory of value: the strong law of demand," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 2(1), pages 65-76, April.
    10. Wright, Austin L. & Sonin, Konstantin & Driscoll, Jesse & Wilson, Jarnickae, 2020. "Poverty and economic dislocation reduce compliance with COVID-19 shelter-in-place protocols," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 544-554.
    11. Janvier D. Nkurunziza, 2005. "Reputation and Credit without Collateral in Africa`s Formal Banking," Economics Series Working Papers WPS/2005-02, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    12. Yariv, Leeat & Jackson, Matthew O., 2018. "The Non-Existence of Representative Agents," CEPR Discussion Papers 13397, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. SAITO Yukiko, 2013. "Role of Hub Firms in Geographical Transaction Network," Discussion papers 13080, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    14. Vadim Borokhov, 2014. "On the properties of nodal price response matrix in electricity markets," Papers 1404.3678, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2015.
    15. Emanuela Marrocu & Raffaele Paci & Stefano Usai, 2013. "Productivity Growth In The Old And New Europe: The Role Of Agglomeration Externalities," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 418-442, August.
    16. Gan, Li & Ju, Gaosheng & Zhu, Xi, 2015. "Nonparametric estimation of structural labor supply and exact welfare change under nonconvex piecewise-linear budget sets," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 188(2), pages 526-544.
    17. Peterson, Jeffrey M. & Boisvert, Richard N. & de Gorter, Harry, 1999. "Multifunctionality and Optimal Environmental Policies for Agriculture in an Open Economy," Working Papers 127701, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    18. Kristien Werck & Bruno Heyndels & Benny Geys, 2008. "The impact of ‘central places’ on spatial spending patterns: evidence from Flemish local government cultural expenditures," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 32(1), pages 35-58, March.
    19. Aldasoro, Iñaki & Delli Gatti, Domenico & Faia, Ester, 2017. "Bank networks: Contagion, systemic risk and prudential policy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 164-188.
    20. Gatti, Nicolas & Cecil, Michael & Baylis, Kathy & Estes, Lyndon & Blekking, Jordan & Heckelei, Thomas & Vergopolan, Noemi & Evans, Tom, 2023. "Is closing the agricultural yield gap a “risky” endeavor?," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Ordinary Goods; Giffen Goods; Veblen Goods; Normal Goods; Inferior Goods; Inelastic Goods;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:col:000089:019423. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Universidad De Los Andes-Cede (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ceandco.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.