marginal utilities

ENGR.ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
14th Edition
ISBN:9780190931919
Author:NEWNAN
Publisher:NEWNAN
Chapter1: Making Economics Decisions
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Existence of representative consumer Suppose households 1 and 2 have one-period utility functions u(c1) and w(c2), respectively, where u and w are both increasing, strictly concave, twice-differentiable functions of a scalar consumption rate. Consider the Pareto problem:

Subject to the constraint c1 + c2 = c. Show that the solution of this problem has the form of a concave utility function vθ(c), which depends on the Pareto weight θ. Show that vθ(c) = θu (c1) = (1 − θ)w (c2). The function vθ(c) is the utility function of the representative consumer. Such a representative consumer always lurks within a complete markets competitive equilibrium even with heterogeneous preferences. At a competitive equilibrium, the marginal utilities of the representative agent and each and every agent are proportional.

 

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