Generalized principle of firms behavior in market economy

This paper suggests a generalized microeconomic criterion of producer which consists in minimizing the danger of firms exit. In the special case, when firm is threatened only by an insufficient profit, this criterion becomes the standard criterion of profit maximization. Six models (three with a single danger, three with a double danger) derived from the general principle (minimizing alternative types of the threat of non-survival) are described and compared.

Keywords: beyond homo oeconomicus, generalized microeconomic criterion, danger of firm's exit