Characterizations of long-run producer optima and the short-runapproach to long-run market equilibrium: a general theory withapplications to peak-load pricing

This is a new formal framework for the theory of competitive equilibrium and its applications.Our "short-run approach" means the calculation of long-run producer optimaand general equilibria from the short-run solutions to the producer's profit maximizationprogramme and its dual. The marginal interpretation of the dual solution means that itcan be used to value the capital and other fixed inputs, whose levels are then adjustedaccordingly (where possible). But short-run profit can be a nondifferentiable function ofthe fixed quantities, and the short-run cost is nondifferentiable whenever there is a rigidcapacity constraint. Nondifferentiability of the optimal value requires the introductionof nonsmooth calculus into equilibrium analysis, and subdifferential generalizations ofsmooth-calculus results of microeconomics are given, including the key Wong-Viner EnvelopeTheorem. This resolves long-standing discrepancies between "textbook theory"and industrial experience. The other tool employed to characterise long-run produceroptima is a primal-dual pair of programmes. Both marginalist and programming characterizationsof producer optima are given in a taxonomy of seventeen equivalent systemsof conditions. When the technology is described by production sets, the most usefulsystem for the short-run approach is that using the short-run profit programme andits dual. This programme pair is employed to set up a formal framework for long-rungeneral-equilibrium pricing of a range of commodities with joint costs of production.This gives a practical method that finds the short-run general equilibrium en route tothe long-run equilibrium, exploiting the operating policies and plant valuations that mustbe determined anyway. These critical short-run solutions have relatively simple formsthat can greatly ease the fixed-point problem of solving for equilibrium, as is shownon an electricity pricing example. Applicable criteria are given for the existence of theshort-run solutions and for the absence of a duality gap. The general analysis is speltout for technologies with conditionally fixed coefficients, a concept extending that of thefixed-coefficients production function to the case of multiple outputs. The short-run approachis applied to the peak-load pricing of electricity generated by thermal, hydro andpumped-storage plants. This gives, for the first time, a sound method of valuing thefixed assets-in this case, river flows and the sites suitable for reservoirs.general equilibrium, fixed-input valuation, nondifferentiable joint costs,Wong-Viner Envelope Theorem, public utility pricing

Phase space properties of charged fields in theories of local observables

Within the setting of algebraic quantum field theory a relation between phase-space properties of observables and charged fields is established. These properties are expressed in terms of compactness and nuclearity conditions which are the basis for the characterization of theories with physically reasonable causal and thermal features. Relevant concepts and results of phase space analysis in algebraic quantum field theory are reviewed and the underlying ideas are outlined.Comment: 33 pages, no figures, AMSTEX, DESY 94-18

Exponential convergence to equilibrium for the homogeneous Boltzmann equation for hard potentials without cut-off

This paper deals with the long time behavior of solutions to the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation. The interactions considered are the so-called (non cut-off and non mollified) hard potentials. We prove an exponential in time convergence towards the equilibrium, improving results of Villani from \cite{Vill1} where a polynomial decay to equilibrium is proven. The basis of the proof is the study of the linearized equation for which we prove a new spectral gap estimate in a $L^1$ space with a polynomial weight by taking advantage of the theory of enlargement of the functional space for the semigroup decay developed by Gualdani and al in \cite{GMM}. We then get our final result by combining this new spectral gap estimate with bilinear estimates on the collisional operator that we establish.Comment: 22 page

Spectral analysis of semigroups and growth-fragmentation equations

The aim of this paper is twofold: (1) On the one hand, the paper revisits the spectral analysis of semigroups in a general Banach space setting. It presents some new and more general versions, and provides comprehensible proofs, of classical results such as the spectral mapping theorem, some (quantified) Weyl's Theorems and the Krein-Rutman Theorem. Motivated by evolution PDE applications, the results apply to a wide and natural class of generators which split as a dissipative part plus a more regular part, without assuming any symmetric structure on the operators nor Hilbert structure on the space, and give some growth estimates and spectral gap estimates for the associated semigroup. The approach relies on some factorization and summation arguments reminiscent of the Dyson-Phillips series in the spirit of those used in [87,82,48,81]. (2) On the other hand, we present the semigroup spectral analysis for three important classes of "growth-fragmentation" equations, namely the cell division equation, the self-similar fragmentation equation and the McKendrick-Von Foerster age structured population equation. By showing that these models lie in the class of equations for which our general semigroup analysis theory applies, we prove the exponential rate of convergence of the solutions to the associated remarkable profile for a very large and natural class of fragmentation rates. Our results generalize similar estimates obtained in \cite{MR2114128,MR2536450} for the cell division model with (almost) constant total fragmentation rate and in \cite{MR2832638,MR2821681} for the self-similar fragmentation equation and the cell division equation restricted to smooth and positive fragmentation rate and total fragmentation rate which does not increase more rapidly than quadratically. It also improves the convergence results without rate obtained in \cite{MR2162224,MR2114413} which have been established under similar assumptions to those made in the present work