Acerca da teoria da concorrência perfeita

"For perfect competition theory, demand is:

• a) heterogeneous across industries, 

• b) homogeneous within industries, and

• c) static.

That is, at different configurations of price across generic product categories, for example, footwear, televisions, and automobiles, perfect competition theory allows consumers to prefer different quantities of each generic product. Within each generic product category or "industry," however, consumers tastes and preferences are assumed to be identical and unchanging through time with respect to desired product features and characteristics. Thus, neoclassical works speak of the "demand for footwear," and the group of firms constituting the footwear "industry" are presumed to face, collectively, a downward-sloping demand curve. Each individual firm in the footwear industry, however, faces a horizontal demand curve because of the homogeneous, intra-industry demand assumption. For perfect competition, the assumptions of homogeneity of demand and supply are necessary for drawing the industry demand and supply curves required for determining the market clearing, equilibrium price. Absent homogeneous demand, the concept of an industry demand curve and the market clearing price make no sense. Therefore, the existence of firms in an industry haying downward-sloping demand curves results from the kind of product differentiation that, according to Chamberlin (1950), consists of "irrational" preferences. That is, downward-sloping demand curves for individual firms are associated with preferences based on either "ignorance" or the "imperfect knowledge" that results from "the reprehensible creation by businessmen of purely fictitious differences between products which are by nature fundamentally uniform"." 

Leio este texto e penso logo no uso da curva da oferta e da procura como ferramenta rápida, simples e errada para explicar tudo... recordar "O erro de análise dos Custos Unitários de Trabalho (parte III)"

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Desconfio que os economistas aprendem esta teoria da competição perfeita como o ideal a perseguir, no primeiro ano da universidade e, depois, ficam como os gansos acabados de nascer, seguem essa teoria para sempre.

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São impressionantes as consequências da incorporação inconsciente do modelo da concorrência perfeita nos modelos mentais das pessoas. Por exemplo, qual o papel da gestão ou da inovação?

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BTW, e se as ideias de Chamberlin tivessem triunfado? Até os soviéticos as abandonaram e reconheceram a importância do marketing e das marcas.

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Trecho retirado de "A General Theory of Competition: Resources, Competences, Productivity, Economic Growth (Marketing for a New Century)"