Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T08:17:19.087Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Transforming Walras Into a Marshallian Economist: A Critical Review of Donald Walker's Walras's Market Models

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2009

Michel De Vroey
Michel De Vroey
Affiliation:
Duke University,
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The history of economics can be compared to a calm sea that once in a while happens to be shaken by heavy storms. This arises when works come out aimed at turning upside down the received interpretation of a great bygone economist's views. Professor Donald A. Walker's recent book, Walras's Market Models (1996), is likely to be among them. Its main thrust is that the view present-day economists have of Léon Walras is incorrect. The basic reason, he claims, is that to date all interpretations of Walras have been based on the last (posthumous) edition of the Eléments d' économie pure (henceforth the Elements), itself a slightly amended version of its fourth edition. To him this is a pity because Walras's most interesting theoretical ideas are to be found in its second and third editions—the embodiment of what he calls Walras's mature phase of theoretical activity—yet were abandoned by him when he revised his work for the fourth edition. The aim of Walker's book, then, is to bring to the fore the picture of what he considers to be the real Walras: an economist interested in the functioning of real-world markets and abiding by a realistic methodology who is attentive to the institutional set-up underlying his system of equations, and who is keen to provide his readers with disequilibrium models. In other words, Walker is trying to make the same claim apropos Walras as Axel Leijonhufvud (1968) did thirty years ago about Keynes when defending the view of a breach between the economics of Keynes and Keynesian economics. To Walker, modern Walrasian economics, or neo-Walrasian theory as it is more often called, is a betrayal of Walras's economics.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , December 1999 , pp. 413 - 435
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bridel, Pascal. 1997. Money and General Equilibrium Theory: From Walras to Pareto (1870–1923). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Bridel, Pascal. 1998. “A Review of Walker's Walras's Market Models.” Journal of Economic Literature 36: 231–233.Google Scholar
Clower, Robert. 1965. “The Keynesian Counterrevolution: A Theoretical Appraisal.” In Donald, Walker, ed., Money and Markets: Essays by Robert Clower. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Collard, David. 1997. “A Review of Walker's Walras's Market Models.” History of Economic Thought Newsletter 59: 24–25.Google Scholar
De Vroey, Michel. 1998. “Is the Tâtonnement Hypothesis a Good Caricature of Market Forces?” Journal of Economic Methodology 5: 201–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Vroey, Michel. 1999a. “Equilibrium and Disequilibrium in Economic Theory: A Confrontation of the Classical, Marshallian and Walras-Hicksian Conceptions.” Economics and Philosophy, 15: 161–185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Vroey, Michel. 1999b. “The Marshallian Market and the Walrasian Market Economy: Two Incompatible Bedfellows.” Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 46: 319–338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donzelli, Franco. 1989. The Concept of Equilibrium in Neoclassical Economic Theory: An Inquiry into the Evolution of General Competitive Analysis from Walras to the “Neo-Walrasian Research Programme. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Fisher, Franklin. 1987. “Adjustment Process and Stability.” In The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, vol. I. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Ingrao, Bruna and Giorgo, Israel. 1990. The Invisible Hand: Economic Equilibrium in the History of Science. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jaffé, William. 1967. “Walras's Theory of Tâtonnement: A Critique of Recent Interpretations.” In Donald, Walker, ed., William Jaffé's Essays on Walras. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, 221–243.Google Scholar
Kirman, Alan. 1998. “A Review of Walker's Walras's Market Models.” Economic Journal 108: 1184–1186.Google Scholar
Leijonhufvud, Axel. 1968. On Keynesian Economics and the Economics of Keynes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lendjel, Emeric. 1997. “Le ‘biais empiriste’ dans l'interpretation de Walker du tâtonnement walrasien,” Economies et Sociétés, Oeconomia, Histoire de la Pensée economique, série P.E. 26: 47–84.Google Scholar
van Daal, Jan. 1998. “A Review of Walker's Walras's Market Models.” European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 5: 399–404.Google Scholar
Walker, Donald. 1983. William Jaffé's Essays on Walras. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, Donald. 1987. “Walras's Theory of Tâtonnement.” Journal of Political Economy 95: 758–774.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, Donald. 1990. “Disequilibrium and Equilibrium in Walras's Model of Oral Pledges Markets.” Revue économique 66: 961–978.Google Scholar
Walker, Donald. 1996. Walras's Market Models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, Donald. 1997. Advances in General Equilibrium Theory. London: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Walras, Léon. 1954. Elements of Pure Economics, translated by William, Jaffé. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Walras, Léon. 1965. Correspondence of Léon Walras and Related Papers, 3 vols., edited by William, Jaffé. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Walras, Léon. 1988. Eléments d'Economie Pure ou Théorie de la Richesse Sociale, vol.VIII of the Auguste et Léon Walras, Oeuvres économiques complètes. Paris: Economica.Google Scholar
Walras, Léon. 1992. Etudes d'économie politique appliquée, vol. 10 of the Auguste et Léon Walras, Oeuvres économiques complètes. Paris: Economica.Google Scholar