Equilibrium and tâtonnement in Walras' Eléments Franco Donzelli Abstract Two alternative interpretations of the equilibrium notion employed by Walras in the Eléments and related writings have been recurrently suggested in the literature: a "stationary" interpretation and an "instantaneous"...

In his economic writings Jevons insists on the allegedly fundamental role played by the so-called "laws of supply and demand" in his theory of exchange; yet no demand-and-supply analysis is actually employed in deriving such theory, as developed in Chapter 4 of The Theory of Political Economy...

In this paper we contrast the received view according to which Walras' and Marshall's approaches to price theory, while differing in scope, are basically similar in their aims, presuppositions, and results. By focusing on a special kind of economy (the pure-exchange, two-commodity economy),...

In a brief review of the second edition of Walras’s Eléments, published in 1889, Edgeworth criticizes Walras’s theory of tâtonnement, viewed as a misplaced and misleading attempt at explaining the equilibration process in a multi-market economy. Edgeworth’s attack sets off a controversy,...

Equilibrium, disequilibrium and time in Walras’ economics.Walras’ theory of general economic equilibrium undergoes deep changes over the twenty-six years elapsing from the date when Walras’ first significant theoretical contribution is published (1874) and the date when the fourth edition...

Rise and decline of the notion of "own rate of interest" in Sraffa. The notion of commodity rate of interest, introduced by Sraffa in a short review-article published in1932, is taken up by Keynes a few years later under the label of own rate of interest. The latter expression soon spreads in...