Optimality and Natural Selection in Markets

Abstract

We ask if natural selection in markets favors profit-maximizing firms and, if so, is there a difference between the predictions of models which assume all firms are profit maximizers and the predictions of models which explicitly take account of population dynamics in the market. We show that market selection favors profit maximizing firms, but we also show that the long-run behavior of evolutionary market models is nonetheless not consistent with equilibrium models based on the profit-maximization hypothesis. Dynamic equilibrium paths with market selection are not Pareto optimal, nor even asymptotically optimal. The discrepancy arises because the dynamics created by firm evolution causes prices to vary over time and the resulting dynamical system need not have stable steady states.