Queue-Rationing and Price Dynamics

The setting is a repeated exchange economy with nonstorable commodit ies. Waiting line queues ration supply and demand at non-Walrasian pr ices. An equilibrium vector of queue times is shown to exist such tha t all markets clear. Prices are adjusted in response to observed queu e times. In contrast to traditional tatonnement theory, individuals behave rationally, trade, and consume throughout the process. If a Wa lrasian equilibrium is noncritical and has "gross substitute queue t imes," then the process is locally asymptotically stable. Alternativ e stability conditions are also derived. Copyright 1987 by The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics.