IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uto/cesmep/201404.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Economic Theories in Competition. A New Narrative of the Debate on General Economic Equilibrium Theory in the 1930s

Author

Listed:

Abstract

The paper deals with the debate on the General Economic Equilibrium in the 1930s in Vienna and at the London School of Economics and offers an interpretation of it different from that of the traditional narratives. It interprets the debate as a renewed confrontation between the two different classical methodological paths of research in GEE, the Paretian and the Walrasian ones. What emerges from this examination is a picture of different approaches and theories in competition, in particular on the issue of the relationship between theory and the real world. This was the fundamental issue at stake. Herein lies also the interest in those distant controversies for the current debate in economics.

Suggested Citation

  • Marchionatti, Roberto & Mornati, Fiorenzo, 2014. "Economic Theories in Competition. A New Narrative of the Debate on General Economic Equilibrium Theory in the 1930s," CESMEP Working Papers 201404, University of Turin.
    • Handle: RePEc:uto:cesmep:201404
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.est.unito.it/do/home.pl/Download?doc=/allegati/wp2014dip/wp_36_2014.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Golland, Louise Ahrndt, 1996. "Formalism in Economics," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(1), pages 1-12, April.
    2. David A. Collard, 1993. "High Hicks, Deep Hicks, and Equilibrium," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 25(2), pages 331-350, Summer.
    3. Roberto Marchionatti, 2006. "At the origin of post-war mainstream of economics: On pareto’s influence on economic theory," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 53(4), pages 538-559, December.
    4. Philippe Mongin, 2003. "L'axiomatisation et les théories économiques," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 54(1), pages 99-138.
    5. Robert J. Leonard, 1995. "From Parlor Games to Social Science: Von Neumann, Morgenstern, and the Creation of Game Theory, 1928-1994," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(2), pages 730-761, June.
    6. Vroey, Michel De, 1999. "Transforming Walras Into a Marshallian Economist: A Critical Review of Donald Walker's Walras's Market Models," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(4), pages 413-435, December.
    7. Arrow, Kenneth J, 1974. "General Economic Equilibrium: Purpose, Analytic Techniques, Collective Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(3), pages 253-272, June.
    8. Roberto Marchionatti, 2007. "On the application of mathematics to political economy'. The Edgeworth--Walras--Bortkievicz controversy, 1889--1891," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 31(2), pages 291-307, March.
    9. Morgenstern, Oskar, 1976. "The Collaboration between Oskar Morgenstern and John von Neumann on the Theory of Games," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 805-816, September.
    10. Paul A. Samuelson, 1998. "How Foundations Came to Be," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(3), pages 1375-1386, September.
    11. Hicks, John, 2017. "A Market Theory of Money," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198796237, Decembrie.
    12. Mornati Fiorenzo & Marchionatti Roberto, 2002. "Pareto et l'économie mathématique au début des années '90. Quelques réflexions à propos des "Considerazioni sui principii fondamentali dell'economia politica pura"," CESMEP Working Papers 200209, University of Turin.
    13. Oskar Morgenstern, 1941. "Professor Hicks on Value and Capital," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 49, pages 361-361.
    14. Sandye Gloria-Palermo, 2010. "Introducing Formalism in Economics: The Growth Model of John von Neumann," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 57(2), pages 153-172, June.
    15. Leonard,Robert, 2010. "Von Neumann, Morgenstern, and the Creation of Game Theory," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521562669.
    16. Sandye Gloria-Palermo, 2010. "Introducing Formalism in Economics : von Neumann's growth model reconsidered," Post-Print halshs-00726348, HAL.
    17. Mario Pomini, 2012. "From steady state to dynamic equilibrium: the perspective in the interwar period," History of Economic Ideas, Fabrizio Serra Editore, Pisa - Roma, vol. 20(2), pages 17-41.
    18. Wittmann Waldemar, 1967. "Die extremale Wirtschaft. Robert Remak — ein Vorläufer der Aktivitätsanalyse," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 180(1), pages 397-409, February.
    19. Elettra Agliardi, 2004. "À propos de.... « L'axiomatisation et les théories économiques » de Philippe Mongin," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 55(1), pages 123-142.
    20. Weintraub, E Roy, 1983. "On the Existence of a Competitive Equilibrium: 1930-1954," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 21(1), pages 1-39, March.
    21. Punzo, Lionello F., 1991. "The School of Mathematical Formalism and the Viennese Circle of Mathematical Economists," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(1), pages 1-18, April.
    22. Marchionatti, Roberto & Gambino, Enrico, 1997. "Pareto and Political Economy as a Science: Methodological Revolution and Analytical Advances in Economic Theory in the 1890s," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(6), pages 1322-1348, December.
    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. Marchionatti, Roberto & Sella, Lisa, 2015. "Is Neo-Walrasian Macroeconomics a Dead End?," CESMEP Working Papers 201502, University of Turin.

    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. Roberto Marchionatti Author-Email: roberto.marchionatti@unito.it & Fiorenzo Mornati Author-Email: fiorenzo.mornati@unito.it, 2016. "Economic Theories in Competition A New Narrative of the Debate on the General Economic Equilibrium Theory in the 1930s," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 63(5), pages 503-523, December.
    2. Marchionatti, Roberto & Sella, Lisa, 2015. "Is Neo-Walrasian Macroeconomics a Dead End?," CESMEP Working Papers 201502, University of Turin.
    3. Arthur Brackmann Netto, 2017. "The Double Edge of Case-Studies: A Frame-Based Definition of Economic Models," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2017_21, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    4. Becchio Giandomenica, 2009. "Ethics and economics in Karl Menger: how did social sciences cope with Hilbertism," CESMEP Working Papers 200905, University of Turin.
    5. Sandye Gloria-Palermo, 2013. "In Search of the Right Tool: From Formalism to Constructivist Modelling," GREDEG Working Papers 2013-33, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    6. Sandye Gloria-Palermo, 2010. "Introducing Formalism in Economics : von Neumann's growth model reconsidered," Post-Print halshs-00726348, HAL.
    7. Turan Yay & Huseyin Tastan, 2010. "Invisible Hand in the Process of Making Economics or on the Method and Scope of Economics," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 57(1), pages 61-83, March.
    8. Giandomenica Becchio, 2008. "The complex role of Karl Menger in the Viennese economic theory," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 21(1), pages 61-79, March.
    9. Pedro Garcia Duarte & Yann Giraud, 2014. "Chasing the B: A Bibliographic Account of Economics’ Relation to its Past, 1991-2011," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2014_06, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    10. Simone Landini & Mauro Gallegati & J. Barkley Rosser, 2020. "Consistency and incompleteness in general equilibrium theory," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 205-230, January.
    11. Zalai, Ernő, 1999. "A közgazdaságtan metodológiájáról és a matematikai közgazdaságtanról a Neumann-modell ürügyén [On the methodolgy of economics and on mathematical economics, under the pretext of the Neumann model]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(7), pages 600-628.
    12. Committee, Nobel Prize, 1994. "The Work of John Nash in Game Theory," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 1994-2, Nobel Prize Committee.
    13. Becchio Giandomenica & Marchionatti Roberto, 2005. "Teoria economica,filosofia e matematica. La riflessione a Vienna nel Wiener Kreis e nel Mathematische Kolloquium, 1922-1938," CESMEP Working Papers 200508, University of Turin.
    14. Escudé, Guillermo J., 2021. "La Teoría del Capitalismo de Karl Marx. Exposición, Crítica y Evaluación [Karl Marx's Theory of Capitalism. Exposition, Critique, and Appraisal]," MPRA Paper 105877, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Escudé, Guillermo J., 2021. "Karl Marx´s Theory of Capitalism Exposition, Critique, and Appraisal," MPRA Paper 113685, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Akhabbar, Amanar, 2013. "Samuelson and the Non-Substitution Theorem: Some Methodological Remarks," MPRA Paper 61760, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Luca Lambertini, 2013. "John von Neumann between Physics and Economics: A methodological note," Review of Economic Analysis, Digital Initiatives at the University of Waterloo Library, vol. 5(2), pages 177-189, December.
    18. E. Roy Weintraub, 2017. "Game Theory and Cold War Rationality: A Review Essay," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(1), pages 148-161, March.
    19. Till Düppe & E. Roy Weintraub, 2013. "Siting the New Economic Science: The Cowles Commission’s Activity Analysis Conference of June 1949," Working Papers 0040, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    20. T.A. Boylan & P.F. O'Gorman, 2007. "Axiomatization And Formalism In Economics," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 426-446, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • B23 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Econometrics; Quantitative and Mathematical Studies
    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology
    • C02 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - General - - - Mathematical Economics
    • D50 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:uto:cesmep:201404. 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: Piero Cavaleri or Marina Grazioli (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cmtorit.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.