This paper provides a bird-eye overview of the history of spatial economic theory. It is organized around three main ideas (and authors): (i) land use and urban economics (Thünen), (ii) the nature of competition across space (Hotelling), and (iii) new economic geography and the emergence of...

Our paper studies two attempts at integrating unemployment in macroeconomics. The first, due to Diamond, consists in a search model exhibiting multiple equilibria. The second is due to Andolfatto and Merz who, more or less simultaneously, were able to integrate the matching function in RBC...

The notion of frictional unemployment first arose in the writings of Beveridge, Pigou and Hicks. Why did it fail at the time to grow into a fully fledged theory ? Our answer is simple. This failure was due to the fact these economists were unwilling and/or unable to go beyond the then-prevailing...

This paper aims at providing a possible explanation for the seemingly peripheral role played by spatial economics in modern economic theory. It considers sucessively five points of view according to which space is introduced in economic models and assesses their contributions and limits.

Have new classicists invented market clearing or have they rehabilited 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...

The aim of this paper is to ponder upon Marshall’s conception of equilibrium and to confront it withWalras’s. In a first section, I present a rational reconstruction of the Marshallian conception. In contrast to its standard tripartite classification interpretation, I claim that this...

The reduction theory of David F. Hendry provides a comprehensive probabilistic framework for the analysis and classification of the reductions associated with empirical econometric models. However, it is unable to provide an analysis on the same underlying probability space of the first...

The aim of this article is to assess Friedman’s claim, put forward in his 1949 article on the Marshallian demand curve, that there is a methodological divide between the Marshallian and Walrasian approaches. Friedman’s argument will be critically examined and compared with the views he...

This paper presents a philosophical discussion of the ethical foundations of economic competition, based in large part on Emmanuel Levinas's theory of exteriority and of responsibility for the "Other". The claim is that competition, notwithstanding its positive effects in terms of efficiency and...