AN EQUIVALENCE PRINCIPLE FOR PERFECTLY COMPETITIVE ECONOMIES

Four axioms are placed oil a correspondence from smooth, non-atomic ec onomies to their allocations. We show than thr axioms categorically de termine, the (coincident) competitive-core-value correspondence. Thus any solution is equivalent to the above three if, and only if, it sati sfies the axioms. In this sense our result is tantamount to an ''equiv alence principle.'' At the same time, our result implies that the thre e solutions themselves are determined by tile axions and so serves as an axiomatic characterizational of the well-known competitive (or core , or value) correspondence. (C) 1997 Academic Press.