Racionalidade Econômica e Direito da Concorrência

A teoria econômica convencional, que lastreia o chamado direito da concorrência, é, por sua vez, baseada em algumas hipóteses elementares, entre as quais a racionalidade dos agentes econômicos. Não uma racionalidade qualquer, limitada pelas incertezas, pela ausência de informações e até mesmo por motivações diversas. A teoria econômica convencional é erigida sob o hipótese da racionalidade substantiva (e a não menos incrível "informação perfeita").

E, no entanto, decisões têm de ser tomadas sob incerteza. O balanço dos riscos envolvidos, dos ônus e bônus decorrentes, enfim, tudo está sujeito a estimativas não muito precisas. Daí a racionalidade limitada dos agentes econômicos, o animal spirit keynesiano e o "sexto sentido" dos empresários e executivos de sucesso.

Essas considerações servem com um extenso preâmbulo à nota publicada no Oligopoly Watch, reproduzida abaixo:

Economists, indeterminacy, and oligopolies
(Oligopoly Watch, 15 de novembro de 2006)

I recently found this revealing passage in a standard Industrial Organization college textbook (Willima G. Shepherd and Joanna M. Shepherd, The Economics of Industrial Organization, Fifth Edition, Waveland Press, 2004, p. 227).

"Oligopoly therefore also involves indeterminacy, because it provides a whole range of possible outcomes. Outcomes vary because there are infinite varieties of both oligopoly structures, which differ in concentration, inequality among leaders, and other elements, and attitudes and motives among the leading firms. The shining hope of theorists has been to find deterministic solutions to the slippery, smoke-and-mirrors indeterminacy of the oligopoly problem." The authors, in exploring some of the chief game theory approaches to oligopoly state "However, game theory has not yielded a single model to explain oligopoly." (p. 228)

It's impossible, they conclude, to reduce oligopoly to a mathematical model, no matter how subtle and multivariate the math, because the number of variables involved. Those game theory models that do exist (Cournot, Bertrand, Stackelberg) describe a simplified world that only exists in the classroom.

On this site, we have stressed the importance of motivation and behavior for understanding oligopolies. Behavior is always indeterminate, but there are principles that underlie behavior, patterns that we can see in play. These principles have little predictive value, but they do help to explain why executives and markets act the way they do. Such business decisions are indeterminate but they are not random, and they can be analyzed and discussed.

For me, it is the variety of possible outcomes that makes the study of oligopoly so interesting and the cases so rich as narratives. I can understand that for those who are determined to capture the world in mathematical models, such variability is frustrating, but they ignore the field at their peril. As hard to capture as it is, the drive toward oligopoly is one of the biggest factors in the current economy and ignoring its pervasiveness gives a distorted view of what is happening in world markets.