The common pool of transitional profits

Randall Holcombe

The Review of Austrian Economics, 2014, vol. 27, issue 4, 387-401

Abstract: Transitional profits are above-normal profits that can be earned by firms as a result of changes in market conditions or entrepreneurial innovations of the firm. They are a common pool and are competed away by firms that enter profitable markets or imitate the innovations of profitable firms. The economics literature provides two conflicting views on transitional profits. One is that above-normal profit is a sign of economic inefficiency and is the result of either monopoly power or disequilibrium. The other is that economic profit is necessary for economic efficiency because profit is the lure that pushes entrepreneurs to allocate resources more efficiently. Both views are considered, along with an analysis of whether this common pool resource is competed away too rapidly, as the theory of common pool resources would suggest. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Keywords: Competition; Profit; Common pool resource; Economic efficiency; Economic progress; Equilibrium (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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DOI: 10.1007/s11138-013-0234-8

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