Equilibrio dinamico ed aspettative in Giulio La Volpe (Expectations and dynamic equilibrium in Giulio La Volpe's thought)

Giulio la Volpe (1909-1996) can be recognized with Giuseppe Palomba as the most important exponent of the Paretian school in Italy. Having graduated in 1930, at the age of only thirty he published probably the most important treatment of this topic, Studies on the theory of general dynamic economic equilibrium (1936), a long and technical essay in which he sought to elaborate the Paretian framework in dynamic terms. La Volpe acknowledged the importance of expectations, as suggested by the then international debate on this topic, but stated the perfect rationality of foresights. Variational calculus was the main mathematical instrument advanced to put forward formal dynamic models. In the post-war years, La Volpe turned his attention to topics other than the construction of dynamic general equilibrium. He concerned himself with welfare economics following the sociological framework of de Pietri-Tonelli. His interest in the relation between static and dynamic economics never diminished, although he abandoned the theoretical perspective adopted in Studies in favour of more empirical analysis