The Monopolistic Competition Revolution in Retrospect

Description

In 1977 a seminal paper was published by Avinash Dixit and Joseph Stiglitz that revolutionized the modeling of imperfectly competitive markets. It launched what might be called the second monopolistic competition revolution, which has been far more successful than the first one, initiated by Edward Chamberlin and Joan Robinson in the 1930s. In this 2003 collection of essays experts in the fields of macroeconomics, international trade theory, economic geography, and international growth theory address the question of why the second revolution was so successful. They also highlight what is missing, and look forward to the next step in the modeling of imperfectly competitive markets. The text includes a comprehensive survey of both monopolistic competition revolutions, and previously unpublished working papers by Dixit and Stiglitz that led to their famous 1977 paper. With contributions from Dixit, Ethier, Neary and Stiglitz amongst others, this collection will excite interest amongst researchers, advanced students and economists.

Steven Brakman is Professor of International Economics at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He is co-author of The Economics of International Transfers (with C. van Marrewijk, 1998) and An Introduction to Geographical Economics (with C. van Marrewijk, H. Garretsen, 2001). Ben Heijdra is Professor of Macroeconomics at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He is the co-author (with Frederick van der Ploeg) of Foundations of Modern Economics (2002).

Review of the hardback: '... an important book that should be read by all research economists and that will be of particular interest to those concerned with international trade. ... One cannot help being inspired by this volume.' Journal of International Economics