This section explores a "second property of the week" in the dynamic model described in preceding sections. Since the previous section's description of the model made the simplifying assumption that markets were open only one day per week (say Monday), the discussion in the present section makes the further assumption that "Mondays are the planning dates too." The author notes the fundamental importance of realizing that the planning decisions about buying and selling "nearly always form part of a system of decisions which is not bounded by the present, but has some reference to future events."
The discussion goes on to note some aspects in which the treatment of planning in the model is unrealistic. For example, it would be more realistic to describe firms as "making plans at irregular intervals." Furthermore, the assumption "that every firm more or less reconsiders the whole situation every Monday" likely implies greater efficiency than the system would actually possess. (The author notes that "an inefficient firm will make major plans as rarely as possible, and do all its planning by small adjustments of detail, which take only a few elements of the situation into account, and do not need much thinking.") The author argues that these assumptions do not matter much for the model.
Thus this section arrives at the assumption that "firms (and private persons) draw up or revise their plans on Mondays in light of the market situation which is disclosing itself; and that any minor adjustments made during the week can be neglected." At the close of business on Mondays, then, markets "have reached the fullest equilibrium which is possible on that date; not only have prices settled down, but every one has made the purchases and sales which seem advantageous to him at those prices." Plans have been adjusted to these prices as well as they can be, given the imperfect efficiency of the planners.
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