Equilibriumwalker’S

The three volumes before us comprise the second title in the “Elgar Reference Collection” ofCritical Ideas in Economics, a new series which, we learn from the book cover, aims to provide “an essential reference source for students, researchers and lecturers in economics.” Each volume in the series will bring together a collection of previously-published articles and book-chapters which “focuses on [a] concept widely used in economics,” and will thereby “improve access to important areas of literature which will not be available in the archives of many of the newer libraries.” No one can deny that Professor Walker’s topic is ideally suited to this stated intent; is there a concept more “widely used in economics” than that of equilibrium? A collection of previously-published items cannot, of course, be appraised in terms of the originality of its content. Such a work offers a different sort of contribution. In addition to the publisher’s stated aim of an improved access to those key articles which, either because of their age or the location of their publication, are not widely available, a work such as this can perform a function not unlike that whichWeintraub (1991, pp. 129–130)ascribes to the survey article. The act of selection (and, hence, of exclusion) serves to delineate the field for the non-specialist, and the ordering of the items in the collection can reveal instructive lines of intellectual development – a “filiation of scientific ideas” to adoptSchumpeter’s (1954, p. 6)felicitous phrase – that otherwise might be obscured.