Introduction: Equilibrium and Evolution

Neil Hart
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Neil Hart: University of Western Sydney

Chapter 1 in Alfred Marshall and Modern Economics, 2013, pp 1-13 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract The prediction made by Kenneth Arrow (see the second epigraph), a leading figure amongst modern equilibrium theorists, is part of a collection of contributions from scientists judged to be at ‘the frontier’ of their disciplines. Each scientist was asked what he or she saw in the future for science. Arrow’s prediction echoes Alfred Marshall’s famous depiction of economic biology as the ‘Mecca of the economist’ made well over a century ago in the preface to his highly influential Principles. As Arrow’s account indicates, mainstream economic analysis has evolved in a direction that has largely abandoned the economic biology Mecca proclaimed by Marshall, with the ‘equilibrium models analogous to mechanics’ constituting the central organising method in the construction of economic theory. The biological paradigm is nested within what now constitutes evolutionary economics; however, despite its growing popularity, this line of inquiry continues to lurk at the fringes of mainstream economics, and has yet to significantly challenge the dominance of the traditional equilibrium-based methods of analysis. In this setting, Arrow’s prediction of a more biological approach to economic analysis appears to be rather problematical, with the economic biology Mecca instead seemingly destined to remain the unfulfilled ambition that it had largely been in Marshall’s writings.

Keywords: Equilibrium Analysis; Modern Economic; Mainstream Economic; Kenneth Arrow; Librium Analogy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-02975-1_1

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DOI: 10.1057/9781137029751_1

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