Fair point—I misstated. The optimization process is inevitable, but no particular optimization level is. Every equilibrium is subject to changes in the forces that underlie it. The balance of efficiency and robustness changes, as well as finding new areas of solution-space that trade off (or don’t!) different dimensions of these aggregates.
I should acknowledge as well that there’s enough path-dependence in the process that there’s no guarantee after a shock that the new equilibrium will be better on any dimension, let alone overall.
Fair point—I misstated. The optimization process is inevitable, but no particular optimization level is.
Every equilibrium is subject to changes in the forces that underlie it. The balance of efficiency and robustness changes, as well as finding new areas of solution-space that trade off (or don’t!) different dimensions of these aggregates.
I should acknowledge as well that there’s enough path-dependence in the process that there’s no guarantee after a shock that the new equilibrium will be better on any dimension, let alone overall.