Intersecting families of sets and the topology of cones in economics

Two classical problems in economics, the existence of a market equilibrium and the existence of social choice functions, are formalized here by the properties of a family of cones associated with the economy. It was recently established that a necessary and sufficient condition for solving the former is the nonempty intersection of the family of cones, and one such condition for solving the latter is the acyclicity of the unions of its subfamilies. We show an unexpected but clear connection betw...