Perishable Goods versus Re-tradable Assets: A Theoretical Reappraisal of a Fundamental Dichotomy

Abstract

Experimental results on market behavior establish a lower stability and efficiency of markets for durable re-tradable assets compared to markets for non-durable, or perishable, goods. In this chapter, we revisit this known but underappreciated dichotomy of goods in the light of our theory of competitive market price formation, and we emphasize the fundamental nature of the concept of asset re-tradability in neoclassical finance through a simple reformulation of the famous no-trade and no-arbitrage theorems.