Isolation and Aggregation in Economics

Ekkehart Schlicht

in Monographs in Economics from University of Munich, Department of Economics, currently edited by Tamilla Benkelberg

Abstract: In explaining economic phenomena, economic analysis concentrates on selected influences and fixes the host of other factors under a ceteris paribus clause. This view, which goes back to Alfred Marshall (1842-1924), is developed in the first part of the book. Aggregation is viewed as a particular application of ceteris paribus analysis - isolation from "structural effects". This leads to an approach, called "closed aggregation", which was introduced by Kenneth May and is also implicit in Keynes' writings but has been neglected more recently. It is argued that macroeconomic models are more stable and more general than the corresponding micro models and that there is no simple analogy between them.

Keywords: Aggregation; moving equilibrium; temporary equilibrium; Keynes; Marshall; ceteris-paribus; isolation; method; microfoundations of macroeconomics; history of economic thought (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: Written 1985
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (41)

Downloads: (external link)
https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/38821/1/schlicht_e ... egation_corr._ed.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Book: Isolation and Aggregation in Economics (1985)
Working Paper: Isolation and Aggregation in Economics (1985)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lmu:muenbk:38821

Access Statistics for this book

More books in Monographs in Economics from University of Munich, Department of Economics Ludwigstr. 28, 80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tamilla Benkelberg ().