IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v13y1999i1p195-204.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Retrospectives: Say's Law

Author

Listed:
  • William J. Baumol

Abstract

What is perhaps most curious about 'Say's law' is the continuing disagreement on its substance and to whom it should be credited. John Maynard Keynes summarized the law as 'supply creates its own demand' but it is now generally agreed that Keynes did not get it quite right. The author has been unable to ascertain who coined the term 'Say's law' but it appears to be a twentieth century appellation, preceding Keynes's use. John-Baptiste Say was certainly among the earlier writers to discuss the topic at length but so far as the author can determine, none of Say's contemporaries--including Say himself--credits him with having been first to enunciate its principles.

Suggested Citation

  • William J. Baumol, 1999. "Retrospectives: Say's Law," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 195-204, Winter.
  • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:13:y:1999:i:1:p:195-204
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.13.1.195
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.13.1.195
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mark Blaug, 1997. "Say's Law of Markets: What Did It Mean and Why Should We Care?," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 23(2), pages 231-235, Spring.
    2. Baumol, William J, 1977. "Say's (at Least) Eight Laws, or What Say and James Mill May Really Have Meant," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 44(174), pages 145-161, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mehmet BÖLÜKBAÞ, 2016. "The Effects of Economic Policies in Turkey: An Application for the Period After 2000," Journal of Social and Administrative Sciences, KSP Journals, vol. 3(4), pages 315-322, December.
    2. Maiju Perälä, 2003. "'Looking at the Other Side of the Coin': The Relationship between Classical Growth and Early Development Theories," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2003-38, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Kakarot-Handtke, Egmont, 2013. "Say’s Law: A Rigorous Restatement," MPRA Paper 52550, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Pies, Ingo, 2010. "Theoretische Grundlagen demokratischer Wirtschafts- und Gesellschaftspolitik: Der Beitrag von William Baumol," Discussion Papers 2010-7, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Chair of Economic Ethics.
    5. Scott Gottlieb, 2013. "How Obamacare Will Re-Shape the Practice of Medicine," NFI Policy Briefs 2013-PB-06, Indiana State University, Scott College of Business, Networks Financial Institute.
    6. Kakarot-Handtke, Egmont, 2015. "Essentials of Constructive Heterodoxy: Say’s Law," MPRA Paper 61670, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Vahabi, Mehrdad, 2003. "La contrainte budgétaire lâche et la théorie économique [Soft Budget Constraint and Economic Theory]," MPRA Paper 17651, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Kakarot-Handtke, Egmont, 2013. "Say’s Law: A Rigorous Restatement," MPRA Paper 52550, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Mehrdad Vahabi, 2001. "The Soft Budget Constraint: A Theoretical Clarification," Post-Print hal-00629160, HAL.
    4. Dirk J. Bezemer, 2012. "Modelos contables y comprensión de la crisis financiera," Revista de Economía Institucional, Universidad Externado de Colombia - Facultad de Economía, vol. 14(26), pages 47-76, January-J.
    5. Rogério Arthmar & Paulo Carlos Leonardo Kulnig Cinelli, 2013. "Economia Clássica entre o Laissez-Faire e o Socialismo," Economia, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics], vol. 14(1a), pages 227-252.
    6. Christian Gehrke & Heinz Kurz, 2001. "Say and Ricardo on value and distribution," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(4), pages 449-486.
    7. Thomas Habanabakize & Daniel Francois Meyer & Judit Oláh, 2019. "The Impact of Productivity, Investment and Real Wages on Employment Absorption Rate in South Africa," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 8(12), pages 1-15, December.
    8. Mehrdad Vahabi, 2018. "János Kornai and General Equilibrium Theory," Acta Oeconomica, Akadémiai Kiadó, Hungary, vol. 68(supplemen), pages 27-52, January.
    9. Tarnell, Brown, 2011. "A brief look at Say's Law: Attempting to understand its relevance and meaning," MPRA Paper 39365, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Catherine P. Winnett & Adrian B. Winnett, 2011. "Innovation, Growth, Cycles and Finance: Three (or Four or More) Stories from the 1930s and their Lessons," Chapters, in: Óscar Dejuán & Eladio Febrero & Maria Cristina Marcuzzo (ed.), The First Great Recession of the 21st Century, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. Alain Béraud & Guy Numa, 2019. "Retrospectives: Lord Keynes and Mr. Say: A Proximity of Ideas," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(3), pages 228-242, Summer.
    12. Tanweer Akram, 2016. "Japan's Liquidity Trap," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_862, Levy Economics Institute.
    13. Claudio Sardoni, 2011. "Unemployment, Recession and Effective Demand," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13837.
    14. Xianming Meng, 2006. "Say's Law and the Business Cycles," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 7(2), pages 295-319, November.
    15. Bezemer, Dirk J, 2009. "“No One Saw This Coming”: Understanding Financial Crisis Through Accounting Models," MPRA Paper 15892, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Hartwig, Johannes, 2022. "Semi-endogenous growth dynamics in a macroeconomic model with delays," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 538-551.
    17. Pies, Ingo, 2010. "Theoretische Grundlagen demokratischer Wirtschafts- und Gesellschaftspolitik: Der Beitrag von William Baumol," Discussion Papers 2010-7, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Chair of Economic Ethics.
    18. Kakarot-Handtke, Egmont, 2012. "Geometrical exposition of structural axiomatic economics (I): Fundamentals," MPRA Paper 43269, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Mehmet BÖLÜKBAÞ, 2016. "The Effects of Economic Policies in Turkey: An Application for the Period After 2000," Journal of Social and Administrative Sciences, KSP Journals, vol. 3(4), pages 315-322, December.
    20. Alejandro Sancho, 1997. "Excedente, valor y distribución en las teorías clásica y marxista del crecimiento," Apuntes. Revista de ciencias sociales, Fondo Editorial, Universidad del Pacífico, vol. 24(41), pages 105-128.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • B12 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Classical (includes Adam Smith)
    • B31 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought: Individuals - - - Individuals

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:13:y:1999:i:1:p:195-204. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.