IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/manchs/v75y2007i3p328-348.html

Did The Market‐Clearing Postulate Pre‐Exist New Classical Economics? The Case Of Marshallian Theory

Author

Listed:
  • MICHEL DE VROEY

Abstract

Have new classicists invented market clearing or have they just rehabilitated it? This is the question addressed in the present paper. It is generally agreed that market clearing underpins Walrasian theory, so my exploration is limited to the question of whether this is also true for Marshallian theory. I will claim that this is broadly the case: once Marshallian theory is properly reconstructed, it exhibits market clearing as a constantly present result. Still, an important difference between market clearing à la Walras and market clearing à la Marshall exists: in the former market clearing is equilibrium, while in the latter market clearing can coexist with disequilibrium. Next, I investigate whether my conclusion extends to the labour market. Again the conclusion reached is affirmative both for Marshall's theory and for present‐day Marshallian models. As to the latter, I take Friedman's Phillips curve model as a case study. I show that this is a market‐clearing model in which, strictly speaking, there is no place for the concept of unemployment—quite an ironical result for the paper that introduced the notion of the natural rate of unemployment!

Suggested Citation

  • Michel De Vroey, 2007. "Did The Market‐Clearing Postulate Pre‐Exist New Classical Economics? The Case Of Marshallian Theory," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 75(3), pages 328-348, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:manchs:v:75:y:2007:i:3:p:328-348
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9957.2007.01020.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9957.2007.01020.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-9957.2007.01020.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Michel De Vroey, 2012. "Microfoundations: A Decisive Dividing Line between Keynesian and New Classical Macroeconomics?," Chapters, in: Microfoundations Reconsidered, chapter 5, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Michel De Vroey, 2014. "Backhouse and Boianovsky on "disequilibrium theory". A review article of transforming modern macroeconomics. Exploring disequilibrium microfoundations, 1956-2003," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(4), pages 724-742, August.
    3. W D A Bryant, 2009. "General Equilibrium:Theory and Evidence," World Scientific Books, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., number 6875.
    4. Paul Oslington, 2012. "General Equilibrium: Theory and Evidence," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 88(282), pages 446-448, September.
    5. Michel De Vroey, 2005. "Marshall versus Walras on Equilibrium and Time," Discussion Papers (ECON - Département des Sciences Economiques) 2005047, Université catholique de Louvain, Département des Sciences Economiques.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • B20 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - General
    • B40 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - General
    • D50 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - General

    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:bla:manchs:v:75:y:2007:i:3:p:328-348. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/semanuk.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.