This paper documents an early fork in the development of macroeconomics, by examining a debate between the Dutch economists Jan Tinbergen and Johan Koopmans. In a 1932 paper, Tinbergen argued that two firms could be stuck in a “bad” equilibrium in the absence of a coordinated action to...

In fall 1935, Abraham Wald presented a fixed-point proof of a general equilibrium model to Karl Menger's Mathematical Colloquium in Vienna. Due to limited space, the paper could not be printed in the eighth proceedings of the Colloquium (the Ergebnisse) published in spring 1937 but was scheduled...

some factors grant innovators with a temporary monopoly. Patenting is the most cited factor in the economic literature. This survey concentrates on another factor that confers innovators with firstmover advantage over their competitors, namely consumer switching costs, whereby a consumer makes...

Economists have long recognized that in free markets, incentives to innovate will be diluted unless some factors grant innovators with a temporary monopoly. Patenting is the most cited factor in the economic literature. This survey concentrates on another factor that confers innovators with...

some factors grant innovators with a temporary monopoly. Patenting is the most cited factor in the economic literature. This survey concentrates on another factor that confers innovators with firstmover advantage over their competitors, namely consumer switching costs, whereby a consumer makes...

This paper reconstructs the history of experimental research on riskless choices during the period 1930-70. The experiments considered here regarded the derivation of indifference curves and the evaluation of the transitivity assumption, that is, matters that in neoclassical economics...

Two stories currently circulate regarding Frank Knight's relationship to the Chicago School of Economics. The first is a story of tradition, emphasizing the continuity of Chicago economics; the other emphasizes the new beginnings in the post-war period. The second story even implies that the...

The emergence of transaction cost economics (TCE) in the early 1970s with Oliver Williamson’s successful reconciliation of the socalled neoclassical approach with Herbert Simon’s organizational theory can be considered an important part of the first cognitive turn in economics. The...