Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-27gpq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T20:08:09.605Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Restabilizing Dynamics: Construction and Constraint in the History of Walrasian Stability Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 October 2009

D. Wade Hands
Affiliation:
University of Puget Sound

Extract

In Stabilizing Dynamics (1991) Roy Weintraub provides a history of stability theory from the work of Hicks and Samuelson in the late 1930s to the Gale and Scarf counterexamples in the 1960s. Unlike his earlier work in the history of general equilibrium theory (1979, 1985, 1988) this recent contribution is not an attempt to fit the Walrasian program into the narrow framework of some particular philosophy of natural science (such as Lakatos's methodology of scientific research programs). Rather, the theme in Stabilizing Dynamics is broadly social constructivist. Simply put, the constructivist view of science is “that scientific knowledge itself is constructed socially, in communities of scientists: Knowledge is constructed, not found” (p. 9).

Type
Essays
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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, K. J., Block, H. D., and Hurwicz, L.. 1959. “On the Stability of the Competitive Equilibrium II.” Econometrica 27:82109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arrow, K. J., and Hahn, F. H.. 1971. General Competitive Analysis. San Francisco: Holden Day.Google Scholar
Arrow, K. J., and Hurwicz, L.. 1958. “On the Stability of the Competitive Equilibrium I.” Econometrica 26:522–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnes, B. 1977. Interests and the Growth of Knowledge. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Boland, L. A. 1982. The Foundations of Economic Method. London: George Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Boyd, R. 1992. “Constructivism, Realism, and Philosophical Method.” In Inference, Explanation, and Other Frustrations: Essays in the Philosophy of Science, edited by Earman, J., pp. 131–98. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chipman, J. S. 1966. “A Survey of the Theory of International Trade, Part 3, the Modern Theory.” Econometrica 34:1876.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clower, R. W., and Bushaw, D. W.. 1954. “Price Determination in a Stock-Flow Economy.” Econometrica 22:328–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Debreu, G. 1970. “Economies with a Finite Set of Equilibria.” Econometrica 38:387–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Debreu, G. 1974. “Excess Demand Functions.” Journal of Mathematical Economics 1:1523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Debreu, G. 1976. “Regular Differentiable Economies.” American Economic Review 66:280–87.Google Scholar
Dierker, E. 1974. Topological Methods in Walrasian Economics. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dierker, E. 1982. “Regular Economies.” In Handbook of Mathematical Economics Vol. 11, edited by Arrow, K. J. and Intriligator, M. D., pp. 795830. Amsterdam: North-Holland.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorfman, R., Samuelson, P. A., and Solow, R. M.. 1958. Linear Programming and Economic Analysis. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Friedman, M. 1949. “The Marshallian Demand Curve.” Journal of Political Economy 57:463–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gale, D. 1955. “The Law of Supply and Demand.” Mathematica Scandinavica 3:155–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gale, D. 1965. “A Note on Global Instability of Competitive Equilibrium.” Naval Research Logistics Quarterly 10:8087.Google Scholar
Gale, D. and Nikaidô, H.. 1965. “The Jacobian Matrix and the Global Univalence of Mappings. Mathematiche Annalen 159:8193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galison, P. 1987. How Experiments End. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Galison, P. 1988. “History, Philosophy, and the Central Metaphor.” Science in Context 2:197212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacking, I. 1983. Representing and Intervening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacking, I. 1989. “The Life of Instruments.” Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 20:265–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacking, I. 1992. “The Self-Vindication of the Laboratory Sciences.” In Science as Practice and Culture, edited by Pickering, A., pp. 2964. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hahn, F. H. 1983. “General Equilibrium and Stability.” In Paul Samuelson and Modern Economic Theory, edited by Brown, E. C. and Solow, R. M., pp. 3155. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Hands, D. W. 1984. “The Role of Crucial Counterexamples in the Growth of Economic Knowledge: Two Case Studies in the Recent History of Economic Thought.” History of Political Economy 16:5967.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hands, D. W. 1985. “The Structuralist View of Economic Theories: A Review Essay.” Economics and Philosophy 1:303–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hands, D. W. 1992. “More Light and Less Heat: Mirowski on Economics and the Energy Metaphor.” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 22:97111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hands, D. W. 1993. “More Light on Integrability, Symmetry, and Utility as Potential Energy in Mirowski's Critical History.” In Non-Natural Social Science, edited by de Marchi, N., pp. 118–30. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Hicks, J. R. 1939. Value and Capital. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hirsch, M. W., and Smale, S.. 1974. Differential Equations, Dynamical Systems, and Linear Algebra. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Hotelling, H. 1932. “Edgeworth's Taxation Paradox and the Nature of Demand and Supply Functions.” Journal of Political Economy 40:577616.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ingrao, B., and Israel, G.. 1990. The Invisible Hand: Economic Equilibrium in the History of Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kirman, A. P. 1989. “The Intrinsic Limits of Modern Economic Theory: The Emperor Has No Clothes.” The Economic Journal 99:126–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirman, A. P. 1992. “Whom or What Does the Representative Individual Represent?Journal of Economic Perspectives 6:117–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lange, O. 1945. Price Flexibility and Employment. Bloomington, IN: Principia Press.Google Scholar
Latour, B., and Woolgar, S.. 1979. Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts. Beverly Hills: Sage.Google Scholar
Lenoir, T. 1988. “Practice, Reason, Context: The Dialogue Between Theory and Experiment.” Science in Context 2:322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mantel, R. R. 1977. “Implications of Microeconomic Theory for Community Excess Demand Functions.” In Frontiers of Quantitative Economics IIIA, edited by Intriligator, M. D., pp. 111–26. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Mas-Colell, A. 1985. The Theory of General Economic Equilibrium. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Metzler, L. A. 1945. “Stability of Multiple Markets: The Hicks Conditions.” Econometrica 13:272–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McFadden, D., Mas-Colell, A., Mantel, R., and Richter, M. K.. 1974. “A Characterization of Community Excess Demand Functions.” Journal of Economic Theory 9:361–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKenzie, L. 1960. “Stability of Equilibrium and the Value of Positive Excess Demands.” Econometrica 28:606–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mirowski, P. 1989. More Heat Than Light: Economics As Social Physics: Physics as Nature's Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Negishi, T. 1962. “The Stability of a Competitive Economy: A Survey Article.” Econometrica 30:635–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newman, P. 1959. “Some Notes on Stability Conditions.” Review of Economic Studies 26:19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newman, P. 1961. “Approaches to Stability Analysis.” Economica 28:1229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Picard, E. 1928. Traité d'analyse, Vol. III (3rd ed.). Paris: Gauthier-Villars.Google Scholar
Pickering, A. 1984. Constructing Quarks: A Sociological History of Particle Physics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Pickering, A. 1990. “Knowledge, Practice and Mere Construction.” Social Studies of Science 20:682729.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pickering, A. (editor). 1992a. Science as Practice and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pickering, A. 1992b. “From Science as Knowledge to Science as Practice.” In Science as Practice and Culture, pp. 126. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pickering, A., and Stephanides, A.. 1992. “Construction Quaternions: On the Analysis of Conceptual Practice.” In Science as Practice and Culture, pp. 139–67. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quirk, J., and Saposnik, R.. 1968. Introduction to General Equilibrium Theory and Welfare Economics. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Rizvi, S. A. T. 1992. “Microfoundations and the Arbitrary Nature of Aggregate Excess Demands in General Equilibrium Theory.” Paper presented at the ASSA meetings in New Orleans, 01 1992.Google Scholar
Roth, P., and Barrett, R.. 1990. “Deconstructing Quarks.” Social Studies of Science 20:579632.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuelson, P. A. 1941. “The Stability of Equilibrium: Comparative Statics and Dynamics.” Econometrica 9:97120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuelson, P. A. 1942. “The Stability of Equilibrium: Linear and Nonlinear Systems.” Econometrica 10:125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuelson, P. A. 1944. “The Relation Between Hicksian Stability and True Dynamic Stability.” Econometrica 12:256–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuelson, P. A. 1947. Foundations of Economic Analysis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Samuelson, P. A. 1950. “The Problem of Integrability in Utility Theory.” Economica 17:355–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scarf, H. 1960. “Some Examples of Global Instability of the Competitive Equilibrium.” International Economic Review 1:147–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shafer, W., and Sonnenschein, H.. 1982. “Market Excess Demand Functions.” In Handbook of Mathematical Economics. Vol. II, edited by Arrow, K. J. and Intriligator, M. D.. pp. 671–93. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Sonenschein, H. 1972. “Market Excess Demand Functions.” Econometrica 40:549–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sonenschein, H. 1973. “Do Walras' Identity and Continuity Characterize the Class of Community Excess Demand Functions?Journal of Economic Theory 6:345–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Takayama, A. 1974. Mathematical Economics. Hinsdale, IL: Dryden Press.Google Scholar
Varian, H. R. 1982. “Dynamical Systems with Applications to Economics.” In Handbook of Mathematical Economics, Vol. I, edited by Arrow, K. J. and Intriligator, M. D., pp. 93110. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Wald, A. 1951. “On Some Systems of Equations of Mathematical Economics.” Econometrica 19:368403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weintraub, E. R. 1979. Microfoundations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weintraub, E. R. 1985. General Equilibrium Analysis: Studies in Appraisal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Weintraub, E. R. 1988. “The NeoWalrasian Program is Empirically Progressive.” In The Popperian Legacy in Economics, edited by de Marchi, N., pp. 213–27. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weintraub, E. R. 1991. Stabilizing Dynamics: Constructing Economic Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, E. B. 1911. Advanced Calculus. Boston: Ginn and Company.Google Scholar