This chapter focuses on situations of pure exchange, where consumers wish to exchange bundles of goods they hold at the outset for other bundles they will subsequently consume. It uses this setting to introduce the theory of price-mediated market transactions and, more particularly, the theory of general equilibrium, in which all markets in all goods are considered simultaneously. Following in the footsteps of generations of classical microeconomists, the chapter makes the assertion that in many situations of pure exchange, the consumer will wind up at the consumption allocation part of some Walrasian equilibrium for the economy, and insofar as there are markets in these goods, prices will correspond to equilibrium prices. One thing that the concept of a Walrasian equilibrium does not provide is any sense of how market operates. There is no model here of who sets prices, or what gets exchanged for what, when, and where.
