MIT微观经济理论I阅读材料集合.pdf

2 Single Variable Problems with Separable Contexts In the preceding chapter, we made several compromises to keep the analysis familiar and relatively simple. First, we assumed differentiability of various functions so that implicit function methods could be applied. Second, we have avoided dealing squarely with the case of multiple optima, choosing to focus instead on the largest and smallest maximizer when multiple maximizers exist. This, too, is a compromise dictated by a desire to stay close to the implicit function approach, which is limited to studying particular optima that vary smoothly with changing parameters. In this chapter, we will gradually eliminate these restrictions, trying at the same time to build new intuitions that corresponds closely to the new methods. At the end of this chapter, we show how the theorems developed in this chapter can be used to generalize and clarify several classic results in producer theory. In particular, we examine the LeChatlier Principle and comparative statics questions about how a firm’s input demands, profits, and supply change with input prices. The formal analysis in both cases is simple and general, dispensing with extraneous assumptions such as convexity of the production technology that are required only by the implicit functions approach; further, the analysis mirrors the economic reasoning. Our analysis of robust comparative statics for optimization distinguishes several kinds of “contexts” for optimization problems. The context treated in this chapter is of a type that arises in the classical theory of the firm, in which the objective is a sum of several terms, with some terms parameterized and others of which are not. While we will not make much use of the formalism assoc