Department of Economics

The Walras core of an economy is the set of allocations that are attainable for the consumers when their trades are constrained to be based on some agreed set of prices, and such that no alternative price system exists for any sub-coalition that allows all members to trade to something better. As compared with the Edgeworth core, both coalitional improvements and being a candidate allocation for the Walras core become harder. The Walras core may even contain allocations that violate the usual Pareto effciency. Nevertheless, the competitive allocations are the same under the two theories, and the equal-treatment Walras core allocations converge under general conditions to the competitive allocations in the process of replication.