On the Allocative Efficiency of Competitive Prices in Economies with Incomplete Markets

Abstract

A new measure of constrained efficiency for application in economies with incomplete markets is presented. This measure --- termed Allais- Malinvaud efficiency --- can be viewed as adjusting for market incompleteness not fully captured in previous work. It is shown that equilibrium allocations in Radner-GEI economies are always Allais- Malinvaud efficient. In particular, a re-distribution of assets in equilibrium cannot induce a relative price change that leads to an Allais-Malinvaud improvement. Moreover, this result extends to Radner- GEI economies in which consumer liability is limited by bankruptcy.