Paradox Of Competition
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Paradox of competition in
economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...
names a model of a situation where measures, which offer a
competitive advantage In business, a competitive advantage is an attribute that allows an organization to outperform its competitors. A competitive advantage may include access to natural resources, such as high-grade ores or a low-cost power source, highly skille ...
to an individual economic entity, lead to nullification of advantage if all others behave in the same way. In some cases the finite state is even more disadvantageous for everybody than before (for the totality as well as for the individual). The term ''Paradox of competition'' () was coined by German economist
Wolfgang Stützel Wolfgang Stützel (23 January 1925, in Aalen, Germany – 1 March 1987, in Saarbrücken, West Germany) was a German economist and professor of economics at the Saarland University, Germany. From 1966 to 1968 he was member of the German Council ...
. It is about a case of a rationality trap. Stützel distinguishes three categories of paradoxes of competition: # Circuit paradoxes # Classical paradoxes # Marx paradoxes


Examples

*
Advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a Product (business), product or Service (economics), service. Advertising aims to present a product or service in terms of utility, advantages, and qualities of int ...
: the overall demand for detergent is assumed steady. By advertisement the individual venture can expand its share in market at the expense of its competitors. But if all producers of detergent do the same, their expenses for advertisement rise without gaining higher sales at large, so that profits even decline. * Opening hours: assumed the legislator extends the allowed opening hours by two hours. Now when an individual shop applies that new opening hours, though it has to pay more work, it can gain higher sales and thereby more profit. But if all shops practise the extended opening hours, customers can shop again at other shops with similar supply and the potential sales volume again allocates to all (similar) shops. * Wage policy: for each individual country counts: a state can improve its price competitiveness in comparison with other states by a restrained wage policy. But from that it does ''just not'' follow that all countries (can) improve their competitiveness when they apply restrained wage policy. * Current account balance: a current account surplus is to the expense of an others state current account deficit – insofar not all can improve their balance at the same time. On the contrary – if all simultaneously begin to cut down their imports they will have a decline of balance in their current account in the end. (see also:
protectionism Protectionism, sometimes referred to as trade protectionism, is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government regulations ...
in the 1930s:
Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act The Tariff Act of 1930, also known as the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act, was a protectionist trade measure signed into law in the United States by President Herbert Hoover on June 17, 1930. Named after its chief congressional sponsors, Senator Reed ...
). *
Currency devaluation A currency is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general definition is that a currency is a ''system of money'' in common use within a specific environm ...
: an individual state with own currency can achieve to lower overseas prices of its export goods by means of currency devaluation. All countries together in total cannot do so. If countries undersell each other with devaluations, the danger of
currency war Currency war, also known as competitive devaluations, is a condition in international relations, international affairs where countries seek to gain a trade advantage over other countries by causing the exchange rate of their currency to fall in r ...
grows, consequence of which is a spiral of devaluation.


Partial sentence, Global sentence, lead and lag effect

Wolfgang Stützel analyses paradoxes of competition using the concept of
Balances Mechanics The Balances Mechanics (; from balances of bookkeeping respectively the credit system and mechanics to characterize the strict universal identities) is a work and mean of economics, comparable with Stock-Flow Consistent Modelling. Statements of Ba ...
(). Specifically he defines and distinguishes validness which is valid for individual economic entities respectively individual groups (''Partial sentence''), and validness which counts for the totality of economic entities (''Global sentence''). Concerning the pursuit of export surpluses he distinguishes as follows: * Partial sentence: ''Every country can achieve export surpluses by expanding its export. Every country can achieve export surpluses by reducing its import.'' * Global sentence: ''The sum of export always equals the sum of import.'' On overall economy examination (
macroeconomics Macroeconomics is a branch of economics that deals with the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole. This includes regional, national, and global economies. Macroeconomists study topics such as output (econ ...
,
aggregation problem In economics, an ''aggregate'' is a summary measure. It replaces a vector that is composed of many real numbers by a single real number, or a scalar. Consequently, there occur various problems that are inherent in the formulations that use aggr ...
) the benefit which individual economies want to achieve for themselves (legitimately) often appears as so called ''lead effect'' as against an inevitable ''lag effect'' of others. When lag effects are condoned, no paradox of competition arises. Solely because ''individual supply and individual demand'' turn out to be more elastic than ''overall supply and overall demand'' the classical paradox of competition can occur.Wolfgang Stützel: ''Paradoxa der Geld- und Konkurrenzwirtschaft.'' Aalen 1979. p. 369.


See also

* Paradox of saving *
Market failure In neoclassical economics, market failure is a situation in which the allocation of goods and services by a free market is not Pareto efficient, often leading to a net loss of economic value.Paul Krugman and Robin Wells Krugman, Robin Wells (2006 ...
*
Balances Mechanics The Balances Mechanics (; from balances of bookkeeping respectively the credit system and mechanics to characterize the strict universal identities) is a work and mean of economics, comparable with Stock-Flow Consistent Modelling. Statements of Ba ...
*
Tragedy of the commons The tragedy of the commons is the concept that, if many people enjoy unfettered access to a finite, valuable resource, such as a pasture, they will tend to overuse it and may end up destroying its value altogether. Even if some users exercised vo ...


Literature

*
Peter Bofinger Peter Bofinger (born 1954) is a German economist and a former member of the German Council of Economic Experts. Early life and education Peter Bofinger was born on 18 September 1954 in Pforzheim. He studied Economics in the Saarland University of ...
: ''Grundzüge der Volkswirtschaftslehre''. Pearson Studium, München 2006. *
Wolfgang Stützel Wolfgang Stützel (23 January 1925, in Aalen, Germany – 1 March 1987, in Saarbrücken, West Germany) was a German economist and professor of economics at the Saarland University, Germany. From 1966 to 1968 he was member of the German Council ...
: ''Paradoxa der Geld- und Konkurrenzwirtschaft.'' Aalen 1979. * Rolf-Dieter Grass, Wolfgang Stützel: ''Volkswirtschaftslehre.'' München 1988, p. 156-165.


References

This article is a translated version of the German Wikipedia article. {{Economic paradoxes Paradoxes in economics Market failure