A robotic hand to support the “invisible hand” of the market – The Significance of “Power” in Exchanges

By Alberto Banterle

Market laws are not deterministic but are related to behavior. The topic dealt with here, briefly, concerns the possibility of controlling behavior such as the uncontrolled rise in prices for certain socially relevant products where they cause damage to families, businesses or entire populations along the supply chains and catchment areas that are fed by them. The proposed solution, albeit impracticable in the short term, is considered to be interesting to evaluate where a gradual move away from globalization is actually triggered at the international level, with the aim of giving rise to territories capable of developing with a certain degree of autonomy, especially in the field of energy. The proposed solution, to be considered only for supply chains that have a strong social impact, brings into play the new tools available today: IT platforms, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, which allow demand monitoring, in real time, on a vast scale.
The field of study of this paper is the analysis of the exchange between two subjects. Circumscribed to the micro dimension, it is however expanded with respect to standard economic theory by introducing both the dimension of power and the motivation to exchange. The basic reference is made by the reflections of those economists, preeminently John Kenneth Galbraith, who criticize the removal from the neoclassical economy of the “power” dimension. We have also referred to the criticism that Galbraith, among others, makes to the assumption of neoclassical economists that the “motivation” in exchanges is solely linked to the reward, to the money obtained in the exchange. In the construction of a mathematical model we paid great attention to its usability in field testing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tangram Edizioni Scientifiche Trento
• Release date: Oct 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9788864589374

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Alberto Banterle

A robotic hand to support the invisible hand of the market

The Significance of Power in Exchanges

Copyright © 2022 Tangram Edizioni Scientifiche

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Collana Orizzonti – NIC 65

Prima edizione digitale: ottobre 2022

ISBN 978-88-6458-236-8 (Print)

ISBN 978-88-6458-937-4 (e-book)

In copertina: Foto di Peter H, Pixabay.com

The book

A robotic hand to support the invisible hand of the market

Market laws are not deterministic but are related to behavior. The topic dealt with here, briefly, concerns the possibility of controlling behavior such as the uncontrolled rise in prices for certain socially relevant products where they cause damage to families, businesses or entire populations along the supply chains and catchment areas that are fed by them. The proposed solution, albeit impracticable in the short term, is considered to be interesting to evaluate where a gradual move away from globalization is actually triggered at the international level, with the aim of giving rise to territories capable of developing with a certain degree of autonomy, especially in the field of energy. The proposed solution, to be considered only for supply chains that have a strong social impact, brings into play the new tools available today: IT platforms, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, which allow demand monitoring, in real time, on a vast scale.

The Significance of Power in Exchanges

The field of study of this paper is the analysis of the exchange between two subjects. Circumscribed to the micro dimension, it is however expanded with respect to standard economic theory by introducing both the dimension of power and the motivation to exchange. The basic reference is made by the reflections of those economists, preeminently John Kenneth Galbraith, who criticize the removal from the neoclassical economy of the power dimension. We have also referred to the criticism that Galbraith, among others, makes to the assumption of neoclassical economists that the motivation in exchanges is solely linked to the reward, to the money obtained in the exchange. In the construction of a mathematical model we paid great attention to its usability in field testing.

The Author

Alberto Banterle was born in Verona on 12-12-1940. He attended school in Milan, obtaining a degree in Electrical Engineering at the Milan Polytechnic. He worked for many years in the field of telecommunications, mainly in the organization of Human Resource Management. Since 1999, he has been a contract professor at the University of Trieste for the course of Business Statistics in the Faculty of Economics, now the Department of Mathematical Economics and Statistics. In these years he has been the coordinator of first level Masters degrees in e-Business and e-Government to which the Faculties of Engineering, Economics and Psychology have contributed. He has also coordinated a Master in Technological Transfer for Eastern Europe with the Italian Trade and Investment Agency.

I give my warmest thanks to Pier Carlo Ravazzi and Emilio Bartezzaghi for the variations and additions that they kindly suggested. I also wish to thank my wife Clara Busana and my son Niccolò for the constant support they have given me throughout the writing of the text.

A robotic hand to support the invisible hand of the market

Foreword

In the brief reflections that follow, within an obviously very simplified framework, the focus of attention is on some aspects concerning the functioning of the market with the aim of assessing in a completely theoretical way the possibility of using the information technology tools available today to inhibit those ‘free choices’ of producers that lead to even serious damage to citizens and businesses. As is well known, the laws that regulate the market are not ‘laws’ in the sense of physics in which cause-effect relationships are conditioned by deterministic constraints between the variables. They