Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T07:46:44.687Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Equilibrium Proofmaking

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2009

E. Roy Weintraub  and
Ted Gayer
E. Roy Weintraub
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708
Ted Gayer
Affiliation:
Georgetown Public Policy Institute, 3600 N Street, NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20007
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Each year, new economics Ph.D. students learn the proof of the existence of a competitive equilibrium as if it were a rite of passage. From the utility-maximizing behavior of consumers and the profit-maximizing behavior of firms, neophyte economists soon can demonstrate that under certain conditions there exists a competitive market-clearing general equilibrium price vector. While there are a number of proofs that establish the existence of such an equilibrium, the validity of these proofs is indubitable. Indeed, economists with even scant knowledge of the history of economics can identify Kenneth J. Arrow and Gerard Debreu's Econometrica paper as having provided the proof that settled the issue.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , December 2001 , pp. 421 - 442
Copyright
Copyright © The History of Economics Society 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Arrow, Kenneth J. and Debreu, Gerard. 1954. “On the Existence of an Equilibrium for a Competitive Economy.” Econometrica 22: 265–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ceci, Stephen J. and Peters, Douglas P.. 1982. “Peer Review Practices of Psychological Journals: The Fate of Published Articles, Submitted Again.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 5: 187–252.Google Scholar
Davis, Philip J. and Hersh, Reuben. 1987. “Rhetoric and Mathematics.” In Nelson, John S., Megill, Allan, and McCloskey, Donald N., eds., The Rhetoric of the Human Sciences: Language and Argument in Scholarship and Public Affairs. University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Friedman, Milton. 1946. “Lange on Price Flexibility and Employment: A Methodological Criticism.” American Economic Review 36: 613–31.Google Scholar
Gayer, Ted and Weintraub, E. Roy. 2000. “Negotiating at the Boundary: Patinkin v. Phipps.” History of Political Economy 32 (03): 441–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamermesh, Daniel S. 1994. “Facts and Myths about Refereeing.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 8 (01): 153–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardy, G. H. 1940. A Mathematician's Apology. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Henderson, James M. and Quandt, Richard E.. 1958. Microeconomic Theory: A Mathematical Approach. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.Google Scholar
Henderson, James M. and Quandt, Richard E.. 1971. Microeconomic Theory: A Mathematical Approach, 2nd edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.Google Scholar
Henderson, James M. and Quandt, Richard E.. 1980. Microeconomic Theory: A Mathematical Approach, 3rd edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.Google Scholar
Hildreth, Clifford. 1986. The Cowles Commission in Chicago, 1939–1955. New York: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffman, Paul. 1998. The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdos and the Search for Mathematical Truth. New York: Hyperion.Google Scholar
Ingrao, Bruna and Israel, Giorgio. 1987. The Invisible Hand: Economic Equilibrium in the History of Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lakatos, Imre. 1970. “Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes.” In Lakatos, Imre and Musgrave, Alan, eds., Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. London and New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Latour, Bruno. 1987. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Leonard, Robert L. Forthcoming. From Red Vienna to Santa Monica: von Neumann, Morgenstern, and Social Science, 1925–1955. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, William G. 1951. The Mathematics of Production and Consumption in a Static Economy. Ph.D. Dissertation in Mathematics, University of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Mirowski, Philip E. 1992. “Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen.” In Samuels, Warren J., ed., New Horizons in Economic Thought: Appraisals of Leading Economists. Aldershot, UK: Elgar Publishers.Google Scholar
Mirowski, Philip E. 1992. Forthcoming. Machine Dreams: Economics as a Cyborg Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Morgenstern, Oskar. 1941. “Professor Hicks on Value and Capital.” Journal of Political Economy 49 (03): 361–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, Douglas P. and Ceci, Stephen J.. 1980. “A Manuscript Masquerade: How Well Does the Review Process Work?” Sciences 20: 16–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapin, Steven. 1994. A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shepherd, George B. 1995. Rejected Leading Economists Ponder the Publication Process. Sun Lakes, AZ: Thomas Horton and Daughters.Google Scholar
Stigler, George J. 1946. The Theory of Price. New York: The Macmillan Company.Google Scholar
Stigler, George J. 1952. The Theory of Price, revised edition. New York: The Macmillan Company.Google Scholar
Stigler, George J. 1966. The Theory of Price, 3rd edition. New York: The Macmillan Company.Google Scholar
Stigler, George J. 1987. The Theory of Price, 4th edition. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Weintraub, E. Roy. 1983. “On the Existence of a Competitive Equilibrium 1930–1954.” Journal of Economic Literature 21 (01): 1–39.Google Scholar
Weintraub, E. Roy. 1985. General Equilibrium Analysis: Studies in Appraisal. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Weintraub, E. Roy. 1997. “Is Ts a Precursor of' a Transitive Relation?” In Smith, Barbara Herrnstein and Plotnitsky, Arkady, eds., Mathematics, Science, and Postclassical Theory. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Weintraub, Sidney. 1949. Price Theory. New York: Pitman Publishing Corporation.Google Scholar
Zuckerman, Harriet and Merton, Robert K.. 1971. “Patterns of Evaluation in Science: Institutionalisation, Structure and Functions of the Referee System.” Minerva 9: 66–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar