Neoclassical economics

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Neoclassical economics is an approach to economics in which the production, consumption, and valuation (pricing) of goods and services are observed as driven by the supply and demand model.^[1][2] According to this line of thought, the value of a good or service is determined through a hypothetical maximization of utility by income-constrained individuals and of profits by firms facing production costs and employing available information and factors of production. This approach has often been justified by appealing to rational choice theory.^[3]

Neoclassical economics historically dominated microeconomics and, together with Keynesian economics, formed the neoclassical synthesis which dominated mainstream economics as "neo-Keynesian economics" from the 1950s to the 1970s.^[4] It competed with new Keynesian economics as new classical macroeconomics in explaining macroeconomic phenomena from the 1970s until the 1990s, when it was identified as having become a part of the new neoclassical synthesis along with new Keynesianism. There have been many critiques of neoclassical economics, some of which have been incorporated into newer versions of neoclassical theory, whilst some remain distinct fields.

Classification

The term was originally introduced by

No attempt will here be made even to pass a verdict on the relative claims of the recognized two or three main "schools" of theory, beyond the somewhat obvious finding that, for the purpose in hand, the so-called Austrian school is scarcely distinguishable from the neo-classical, unless it be in the different distribution of emphasis. The divergence between the modernized classical views, on the one hand, and the historical and Marxist schools, on the other hand, is wider, so much so, indeed, as to bar out a consideration of the postulates of the latter under the same head of inquiry with the former.[7]

It was later used by

Neoclassical economics is characterized by several assumptions common to many schools of economic thought. There is not a complete agreement on what is meant by neoclassical economics, and the result is a wide range of neoclassical approaches to various problem areas and domains—ranging from neoclassical theories of labor to neoclassical theories of demographic changes.

Theory

Assumptions and objectives

It was expressed by E. Roy Weintraub that neoclassical economics rests on three assumptions, although certain branches of neoclassical theory may have different approaches:^[10]

• People have rational preferences between outcomes that can be identified and associated with values.
• Individuals
  maximize utility and firms maximize profits
  .
• People act independently on the basis of full and relevant information.

From these three assumptions, neoclassical economists have built a structure to understand the allocation of scarce resources among alternative ends—in fact, understanding such allocation is often considered the definition of economics to neoclassical theorists. Here is how William Stanley Jevons presented "the problem of Economics".

Given, a certain population, with various needs and powers of production, in possession of certain lands and other sources of material: required, the mode of employing their labor which will maximize the utility of their produce.^[11]

From the basic assumptions of neoclassical economics comes a wide range of theories about various areas of economic activity. For example, profit maximization lies behind the neoclassical

Market analysis is typically the neoclassical answer to price questions, such as why does an apple cost less than an automobile, why does the performance of work command a wage, or how to account for interest as a reward for saving. An important device of neoclassical market analysis is the graph presenting supply and demand curves. The curves reflect the behavior of individual buyers and individual sellers. Buyers and sellers interact with each other in and through these markets, and their interactions determine the market prices of anything they buy and sell. In the following graph, the specific price of the commodity being bought/sold is represented by P*.^[13]

In reaching agreed outcomes of their interactions, the market behaviors of buyers and sellers are driven by their preferences (= wants, utilities, tastes, choices) and productive abilities (= technologies, resources). This creates a complex relationship between buyers and sellers. Thus, the geometrical analytics of supply and demand is only a simplified way how to describe and explore their interaction.^[14] Market supply and demand are aggregated across firms and individuals. Their interactions determine equilibrium output and price. The market supply and demand for each factor of production is derived analogously to those for market final output^[15] to determine equilibrium income and the income distribution. Factor demand incorporates the marginal-productivity relationship of that factor in the output market.^{[8][16][17][18]}

Neoclassical economics emphasizes equilibria, which are the solutions of

Utility theory of value

Neoclassical economics uses the

The partial definition of the neoclassical theory of value states that the value of an object of market exchange is determined by human interaction between the preferences and productive abilities of individuals. This is one of the most important neoclassical hypotheses. However, the neoclassical theory also asks what exactly is causing the supply and demand behaviors of buyers and sellers, and how exactly the preferences and productive abilities of people determine the market prices. Therefore, the neoclassical theory of value is a theory of these forces: the preferences and productive abilities of humans. They are the final causal determinants of the behavior of supply and demand and therefore of value. According to neoclassical economics, individual preferences and productive abilities are the essential forces that generate all other economic events (demands, supplies, and prices).[20]

Cambridge quantity theory of money

The Cambridge version of the

where ${\displaystyle M_{d}}$ is the demand for money, ${\displaystyle k}$ is the Cambridge (Marshall) coefficient expressing the part of real income in the form of cash, ${\displaystyle P}$ is the price level and ${\displaystyle Y}$ is the real income. The left side of the Cambridge equation is expressing the money supply, i.e. the amount of money that people have at their disposal, whereas the right side is expressing the sum of cash people actually want to have, i.e. it is expressing the money demand. Thus, the Cambridge equation is focusing on exploring the conditions of equilibrium in the money market.[21]

Market failure and externalities

Despite favoring markets to organize economic activity, neoclassical theory acknowledges that markets do not always produce the socially desirable outcome due to the presence of externalities.^[19] Externalities are considered a form of market failure. Neoclassical economists vary in terms of the significance they ascribe to externalities in market outcomes.

Pareto criterion

In a market with a very large number of participants and under appropriate conditions, for each good, there will be a unique price that allows all welfare–improving transactions to take place. This price is determined by the actions of the individuals pursuing their preferences. If these prices are flexible, meaning that all parties are able to pursue transactions at any rates they find mutually beneficial, they will, under appropriate assumptions, tend to settle at price levels that allow for all welfare–improving transactions. Under these assumptions, free-market processes yield an optimum of social welfare. This type of group welfare is called the

Neoclassical economics favors free trade according to David Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage.^[24] This idea holds that free trade between two countries is always mutually beneficial because it allows the greatest total consumption in both countries.

Origins

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Classical economics, developed in the 18th and 19th centuries, included a value theory and distribution theory. The value of a product was thought to depend on the costs involved in producing that product. The explanation of costs in classical economics was simultaneously an explanation of distribution. A landlord received rent, workers received wages, and a capitalist tenant farmer received profits on their investment. This classic approach included the work of Adam Smith and David Ricardo.

However, some economists gradually began emphasizing the perceived value of a good to the consumer. They proposed a theory that the value of a product was to be explained with differences in utility (usefulness) to the consumer. (In England, economists tended to conceptualize utility in keeping with the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and later of John Stuart Mill.)

The third step from political economy to economics was the introduction of marginalism and the proposition that economic actors made decisions based on margins. For example, a person decides to buy a second sandwich based on how full he or she is after the first one, a firm hires a new employee based on the expected increase in profits the employee will bring. This differs from the aggregate decision-making of classical political economy in that it explains how vital goods such as water can be cheap, while luxuries can be expensive.

Marginal revolution

The change in economic theory from classical to neoclassical economics has been called the "marginal revolution", although it has been argued that the process was slower than the term suggests.^[25] It is frequently dated from William Stanley Jevons's Theory of Political Economy (1871), Carl Menger's Principles of Economics (1871), and Léon Walras's Elements of Pure Economics (1874–1877). Historians of economics and economists have debated:

• Whether utility or marginalism was more essential to this revolution (whether the noun or the adjective in the phrase "marginal utility" is more important)
• Whether there was a revolutionary change of thought or merely a gradual development and change of emphasis from their predecessors
• Whether grouping these economists together disguises differences more important than their similarities.^[26]

In particular, Jevons saw his economics as an application and development of Jeremy Bentham's utilitarianism and never had a fully developed general equilibrium theory. Menger did not embrace this hedonic conception, explained diminishing marginal utility in terms of subjective prioritization of possible uses, and emphasized disequilibrium and the discrete; further, Menger had an objection to the use of mathematics in economics, while the other two modeled their theories after 19th-century mechanics.^[27] Jevons built on the hedonic conception of Bentham or of Mill, while Walras was more interested in the interaction of markets than in explaining the individual psyche.^[26]

Marshall explained price by the intersection of supply and demand curves. The introduction of different market "periods" was an important innovation of Marshall's:

• Market period. The goods produced for sale on the market are taken as given data, e.g. in a fish market. Prices quickly adjust to clear markets.
• Short period. Industrial capacity is taken as given. The level of output, the level of employment, the inputs of raw materials, and prices fluctuate to equate marginal cost and marginal revenue, where profits are maximized. Economic rents exist in short period equilibrium for fixed factors, and the rate of profit is not equated across sectors.
• Long period. The stock of capital goods, such as factories and machines, is not taken as given. Profit-maximizing equilibria determine both industrial capacity and the level at which it is operated.
• Very long period. Technology, population trends, habits, and customs are not taken as given but allowed to vary in very long period models.

Marshall took supply and demand as stable functions and extended supply and demand explanations of prices to all runs. He argued supply was easier to vary in longer runs, and thus became a more important determinant of price in the very long run.

Cambridge and Lausanne school

Cambridge and Lausanne School of economics form the basis of neoclassical economics. Until the 1930s, the evolution of neoclassical economics was determined by the Cambridge school and was based on the marginal equilibrium theory. At the beginning of the 1930s, the Lausanne general equilibrium theory became the general basis of neoclassical economics and the marginal equilibrium theory was understood as its simplification.^[28]

The thinking of the Cambridge school continued in the steps of classical political economics and its traditions but was based on the new approach that originated from the marginalist revolution. Its founder was

Evolution

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The evolution of neoclassical economics can be divided into three phases. The first phase (= a pre-Keynesian phase) is dated between the initial forming of neoclassical economics (the second half of the nineteenth century) and the arrival of

These developments were accompanied by the introduction of new tools, such as indifference curves and the theory of ordinal utility. The level of mathematical sophistication of neoclassical economics increased. Paul Samuelson's Foundations of Economic Analysis (1947) contributed to this increase in mathematical modeling.

The interwar period in American economics has been argued to have been pluralistic, with neoclassical economics and

Hicks' book, Value and Capital had two main parts. The second, which was arguably not immediately influential, presented a model of temporary equilibrium. Hicks was influenced directly by Hayek's notion of intertemporal coordination and paralleled by earlier work by Lindhal. This was part of an abandonment of disaggregated long-run models. This trend probably reached its culmination with the Arrow–Debreu model of intertemporal equilibrium. The Arrow–Debreu model has canonical presentations in Gérard Debreu's Theory of Value (1959) and in Arrow and Hahn's "General Competitive Analysis" (1971).

Neoclassical synthesis

Many of these developments were against the backdrop of improvements in both econometrics, that is the ability to measure prices and changes in goods and services, as well as their aggregate quantities, and in the creation of macroeconomics, or the study of whole economies. The attempt to combine neo-classical microeconomics and Keynesian macroeconomics would lead to the neoclassical synthesis^[33] which was the dominant paradigm of economic reasoning in English-speaking countries from the 1950s till the 1970s. Hicks and Samuelson were for example instrumental in mainstreaming Keynesian economics.

The dominance of

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Some see mathematical models used in contemporary research in mainstream economics as having transcended neoclassical economics,^[41] while others disagree.^[42] Mathematical models also include those in game theory, linear programming, and econometrics. Critics of neoclassical economics are divided into those who think that highly mathematical method is inherently wrong and those who think that mathematical method is useful even if neoclassical economics has other problems.^[43]

Critics such as Tony Lawson contend that neoclassical economics' reliance on functional relations is inadequate for social phenomena in which knowledge of one variable does not reliably predict another.^[44] The different factors affecting economic outcomes cannot be experimentally isolated from one another in a laboratory; therefore the explanatory and predictive power of mathematical economic analysis is limited. Lawson proposes an alternative approach called the contrast explanation which he says is better suited for determining causes of events in social sciences. More broadly, critics of economics as a science vary, with some believing that all mathematical economics is problematic or even pseudoscience and others believing it is still useful but has less certainty and higher risk of methodology problems than in other fields.^[45][46]

Milton Friedman, one of the most prominent and influential neoclassical economists of the 20th century, responded to criticisms that assumptions in economic models were often unrealistic by saying that theories should be judged by their ability to predict events rather than by the supposed realism of their assumptions.^[47] He claimed that, on the contrary, a theory with more absurd assumptions has stronger predictive power. He argued that a theory's ability to theoretically explain reality is irrelevant compared to its ability to empirically predict reality, no matter the method of getting to that prediction.

Objectivity and pluralism

Neoclassical economics is often criticized for having a

One of the most widely criticized aspects of neoclassical economics is its set of assumptions about human behavior and rationality. According to Edward Fullbrook, these assumptions were chosen not because they were observed to be true by studying human behavior, but because they were the required conditions to reach a market equilibrium.^[52] The "economic man", or a hypothetical human who acts according to neoclassical assumptions, does not necessarily behave the same way as humans do in reality.^[53] The economist and critic of capitalism Thorstein Veblen claimed that neoclassical economics assumes a person to be "a lightning calculator of pleasures and pains, who oscillates like a homogeneous globule of desire of happiness under the impulse of stimuli that shift about the area, but leave him intact."^[54]

Veblen's characterization references a number of commonly criticized rationality assumptions: that people make decisions using a rigid utilitarian framework, have perfect information available about their options, have perfect information processing ability allowing them to immediately calculate utility for all possible options, and are independent decision-makers whose choices are unaffected by their surroundings or by other people. While Veblen is from the Institutional school, the Behavioral school of economics is focused on studying the mechanisms of human decision-making and how they differ from neoclassical assumptions of rationality. Altruistic or empathy-based behavior is another form of "non-rational" decision making studied by behavioral economists, which differs from the neoclassical assumption that people only act in self-interest.^[55][56] Behavioral economists account for how psychological, neurological, and even emotional factors significantly affect economic perceptions and behaviors.^[57]

Rational choice theory need not be problematic according to a paper written by the economist Gary Becker which was published in 1962 in the Journal of Political Economy called "Irrational Behavior and Economic Theory".^[58] According to Becker, this paper demonstrates "how the important theorems of modern economics result from a general principle which not only includes rational behavior and survivor arguments as special cases, but also much irrational behavior." The specific important theorems and results which are shown to result from a broad range of different type of irrational behavior, as well as rational behavior by market participants in the paper, are that market demand curves are downward sloping or "negatively inclined", and that if an industry transformed from a competitive industry to a completely monopolistic cartel and profits are always maximized, then output per firm under the cartel would decrease compared to its equilibrium level when the industry was competitive.

This paper was largely based on the 1950 paper "Uncertainty, Evolution, and Economic Theory" by Armen Alchian.^[59] The paper sets out a justification for supply analysis separate from relying on the assumption of rational consumption, the representative firm and the way neoclassical economists analyze firm behavior in markets which does not apply on rational behavior by the decision makers in those firms, nor any other type of foresighted or goal directed behavior by them. Becker's subsequent 1962 paper provides an independent justification for neoclassical market demand analysis. The two papers offer separate justifications for the use of neoclassical methodology for supply and demand analysis without relying on assumptions otherwise criticised as implausible.

Methodological individualism

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Neoclassical economics offers an approach to studying the economic behavior of homo-economicus. This theory is based on methodological individualism and adopts an atomistic approach to social phenomena, according to which social atoms are the individuals and their actions.^[60] According to this doctrine, individuals are independent of social phenomena, but the opposite is not true. Individuals' actions can explain macro-scale behavior, and social collections are nothing more than aggregates, and they do not add anything to its components (Ibid). Although methodological individualism does not negate complex social phenomena such as institutions or behavioral rules, it argues any explanation should be based on constituent components' characteristics of those institutions. This is a reductionist approach based on which it is believed that the characteristics of the social system are derived from the individuals' preferences and their actions.^[61]

A critique of this approach is that the individuals' preferences and interests are not fixed. The structures contextualize individual's. According to social constructivists, systems are co-constituted alongside the actors, and ideas within the system define actors' identities, their interests, and thus their behavior.^[62] In this regard, actors in various circumstances (exposed to different impressions and experiences) will construct their interests and preferences differently, both within each other and over time.^[63] Given the individualistic foundation of the economic theory, critics argue that this theory should consider individual action's structural contexts.

Inequality

Neoclassical economics is often criticized as promoting policies that increase inequality and as failing to recognise the impact of inequality on economic outcomes. In the case of the former claim, neoclassical economics is often used for analysis in support of policies reducing economic inequality—in particular through determining the diminishing marginal utility of income, whereby poorer individuals gain greater net benefits from a given increase in income than comparable richer individuals,^[64][65] but more generally by being the primary means by which the impact on inequality of any given policy is assessed. In the case of the latter claim, neoclassical economics is the prevailing lens through which the relationship between inequality and economic outcomes is studied.^[66]

Ethics of markets

Neoclassical economics tends to promote

• Marginalism
• Market economy
• Microeconomics
• Neoclassical synthesis
• Static equilibrium (economics)

References