Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- PART I WALRAS'S BIOGRAPHY
- PART II THE GENESIS AND DEVELOPMENT OF WALRAS'S IDEAS
- PART III THE SCOPE OF WALRAS'S WORK
- PART IV SPECIAL TOPICS IN WALRAS'S ECONOMICS
- 9 Léon Walras' theory of capital accumulation (1942)
- 10 Walras's theory of capital formation in the framework of his theory of general equilibrium (1953)
- 11 New light on an old quarrel: Barone's unpublished review of Wicksteed's “Essay on the coordination of the laws of distribution” and related documents (1964)
- 12 The Walras-Poincaré correspondence on the cardinal measurability of utility (1977)
- 13 Walras' theory of tâtonnement: a critique of recent interpretations (1967)
- 14 Another look at Léon Walras's theory of tâtonnement (1981)
- PART V WALRAS'S PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT
- Index
11 - New light on an old quarrel: Barone's unpublished review of Wicksteed's “Essay on the coordination of the laws of distribution” and related documents (1964)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- PART I WALRAS'S BIOGRAPHY
- PART II THE GENESIS AND DEVELOPMENT OF WALRAS'S IDEAS
- PART III THE SCOPE OF WALRAS'S WORK
- PART IV SPECIAL TOPICS IN WALRAS'S ECONOMICS
- 9 Léon Walras' theory of capital accumulation (1942)
- 10 Walras's theory of capital formation in the framework of his theory of general equilibrium (1953)
- 11 New light on an old quarrel: Barone's unpublished review of Wicksteed's “Essay on the coordination of the laws of distribution” and related documents (1964)
- 12 The Walras-Poincaré correspondence on the cardinal measurability of utility (1977)
- 13 Walras' theory of tâtonnement: a critique of recent interpretations (1967)
- 14 Another look at Léon Walras's theory of tâtonnement (1981)
- PART V WALRAS'S PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT
- Index
Summary
The old quarrel with which this paper deals is of significance for the light it sheds on the authorship of the marginal productivity theory in its modern mathematical form. The locus classicus of the quarrel is Léon Walras's “Note sur la réfutation de la théorie anglaise du fermage de M. Wicksteed” (hereinafter referred to as his “Note”), published in the 3rd edition (1896) of his Eléments d'économie politique pure as Appendix III. What did Walras mean by the charge, at the close of his “Note,” that Mr. Wicksteed “might have been better advised had he not persisted in appearing ignorant of the work of his forerunners”? Did Walras mean to include himself among the forerunners he thought were deliberately ignored in Philip H. Wicksteed's Essay on the Coordination of the Laws of Distribution? If so, what did Walras conceive his contribution to be? The answers to these questions thus far given have been contradictory and at times heated. Fortunately, several hitherto unpublished documents and letters preserved in the Fonds Walras of the Bibliothèque Cantonale et Universitaire de Lausanne illuminate the issues involved.
The most important of these documents is, undoubtedly, Enrico Barone's review article, “Sopra un recente libro del Wicksteed,” originally written for the Economic Journal, but rejected by Edgeworth in 1895 and then lost from sight.
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- William Jaffe's Essays on Walras , pp. 176 - 212Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1983
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