The Survival Assumption in Intertemporal Economies

In an economy with a non-convex production sector, we provide an assumption on each individual producer, which implies that the survival assumption holds true at the aggregate level for general pricing rules. For the marginal pricing rule, we derive this assumption from the bounded marginal productivity of inputs. We apply this approach to intertemporal economies and we show how our assumption fits well with the time structure leading to a tractable existence result of equilibria, which could be apply to discrete dynamical growth models.General equilibrium theory ; increasing returns ; survival assumption ; marginal pricing ; general pricing rules

Large-scale land and water acquisitions: What implications for food security?

Since 2007, the world has seen a rush towards natural resources, particularly land as well as water. It resulted from a convergence of the 2007- 2008 food price crisis in a context of growing populations and changing diets, and the search for alternatives to financial investment products. Although data is scarce, recent estimates show that about 42 million hectares have been acquired (Nolte, Chamberlain and Giger, 2016). Contrary to what is often highlighted, these lands are not the most marginal, underused and unowned, but are close to other resources, especially water, as well as infrastructure (roads and transport) and services. This means the resource acquisition phenomenon is embedded in a complex matrix of resources and processes which is increasingly under pressure. That said, attention has so far mainly been sectoral, focused on land issues and neglecting this interconnectedness. However, the water implications of these land deals are starting to surface