Perfect Competition, preferences, and Asymmetrical Information

[ragnarok20]

So a thought occurred to me recently about the model of perfect competition (PC) as it relates to personal preferences (PP) and Symmetrical Information (SI).  Namely my question centers around whether or not PC models necessitate the existence of Symmetrical Preferences (SP) as it seems to me that in order for PC to operate in regards to SI then SP

Comments

[tcpip]

I am more of the opinion that PC requires not only SI, but perfect information (PI). Even given that however, I do not see how PC need SP for time/cost preference (let alone actual goods and services).

[ragnarok20]

Sorry it's been a minute since I studied economics in an academic setting, but it seemed that SI would be a better term given that it more accurately reflects the relationship to asymmetrical informartion . Thus it seems that SI is synonymous with perfect information (PI). My concern, broadly speaking, is to what degree preference plays in PC models. As I said there does seem to be some account of a preferences and in PC models but I am not sure as to what it is.

tl;dr - what role, if any, do preferences play in perfect competition?

[tcpip]

SI is necessary for the competition side of the equation (in other words, to use the hackneyed phrase, "a level playing field"), but PI is necessary for for the perfect side of the equation. PI will be SI, but SI is not necessarily PI. We could both 70% understanding (and the same 70% understanding) of a market, and whilst that would be SI, we would still be making errors of rational choice as we don't have PI.

In general I don't think preferences play a great role in PC models; rather the PC models are a description by which preferences are most optimally expressed.

[ragnarok20]

Let me take a step back. Firstly, PC is never possible because of the Hayekian Local Knowledge Problem. That is SI will never exist because various kinds of knowledge cannot be aggregated.

My concern is this: while I understand that PC is merely a mathematical model it relies on So (or PI if you will). It seems to me that in order for that condition to obtain then all market actors must act the same regardless of preferences. That is, ceterus paribus, if one market actor prefers time preference one (TP1) and another TP2 then we would expect different results.

I guess my concern is that PC relies on perfect information but that PI inherently relies on preference since Local Knowledge, by definition, has preference embedded in it. Does that make any sense?