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Society</h2> <h3><em>An International Society for the Advancement of Economic<br class="mhide"/> Theory in its Relation to Statistics and Mathematics</em></h3> <p class="nomargin smallish">Edited by: Guido W. Imbens • Print ISSN: 0012-9682 • Online ISSN: 1468-0262</p> </div></div></div></div></div></div> <div class="breadcrumb"><div class="inner aligncenter"><a href="/">Home</a><span>></span> <a href="/publications">Publications</a><span>></span> <a href="/publications/econometrica">Econometrica</a><span>></span>Stability, Disequilibrium Awareness, and the Perception of New Opportunities</div></div><div id="main"><div class="inner"><div class="row reverse"><div class="col c9"><div id="main_content" class="inner listing_container"><div class="box morepadding"><p class="h4 upper">Econometrica: Mar, 1981, <a href="/publications/econometrica/browse/volume/1981" class="">Volume 49</a>, <a href="/publications/econometrica/browse/issue/1981/03" class="">Issue 2</a></p> <h1>Stability, Disequilibrium Awareness, and the Perception of New Opportunities</h1><p class="smaller"><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1913312" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.jstor.org/stable/1913312</a><br>p. 279-317</p><p>Franklin M. Fisher</p><div class="abstract"><p>This paper presents a model of general equilibrium stability in which agents understand that they are not at equilibrium. Rather, agents expect prices to change and contemplate the possibility that they may not be able to complete their own transactions. They optimize their actions taking account of such price changes and transaction constraints. It is shown that a necessary condition for instability is the continuing perception of new, previously unforeseen opportunities (real or imagined). Without this, old opportunities will be arbitraged away and the system will converge to equilibrium. The equilibrium approached will depend on the history of the system and may not be Walrasian if transaction constraints are present.</p></div><hr><div class="article_actions"> <div class="right institutional_access"><a class="button" target="_blank" href="/member-authentication/jstor/institutional-access?doi=0012-9682(198103)49:2<279:SDAATP>2.0.CO;2-J&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.jstor.org%2Fstable%2F1913312">Institutional Access</a></div><a href="/users_login/?user_redirect=/publications/econometrica/1981/03/01/stability-disequilibrium-awareness-and-perception-new" class="button">Log In To View Full Content</a> </div><div class="clear"></div></div></div><div class="clear"></div></div> <div class="col c3"><div class="box white_bg padding"><div class="side_nav_parents"><a href="/publications" class="none"><p class="h4">Publications</p></a><a href="/publications/econometrica" class="none"><p class="h3">Econometrica</p></a></div><ul class="side_nav" role="navigation" 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