Say's Law of Markets: What Did It Mean and Why Should We Care?

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Say's Law of Markets: What Did It Mean and Why Should We Care?

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Mark Blaug (University of Exeter)

Abstract

When the Classical economists asserted the "impossibility of general overproduction," or what we now call Say's Law of Markets, they had in mind not periodic crises or business cycles but secular stagnation. Could the capitalist system absorb the constant increases in output without breakdown from limits inherent in the system? Say's Law supplied an affirmative answer to the question: with flexible prices, the system is forever tending to full employment, full-capacity equilibrium. The issue of what was meant by Say's Law has been hopelessly misunderstood in modern times, first by a Keynesian reading but more by a Walrasian reading of the doctrine.

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Publisher Info
Article provided by Eastern Economic Association in its journal Eastern Economic Journal.

Volume (Year): 23 (1997)
Issue (Month): 2 (Spring)
Pages: 231-235
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Handle: RePEc:eej:eeconj:v:23:y:1997:i:2:p:231-235

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
B12 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Classical (includes Adam Smith)
B22 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Macroeconomics
E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

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. [Downloadable!]
William J. Baumol, 1999. "Retrospectives: Say's Law," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 195-204, Winter. [Downloadable!] (restricted)

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