GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM THEORY

by Gérard Debreu

Overview

General Equilibrium Theory has been one of the major intellectual developments in economics during the past half-century. The theory of general equilibrium is centred on an inquiry about human societies which has several of the characteristics of a fundamental scientific question. In an economy, a multitude of agents produce, exchange, and consume a large number of commodities. Their decisions are independent of each other and dictated by self-interest. Attempting to answer the question 'Why is social chaos not the result?' has required an intensive research effort by several generations of leading economists.

This important three volume set gathers together many of the articles that have played an influential role in the history of ideas in the general equilibrium area in the contemporary period.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781852784171
Publisher:	Edward Elgar Publishing
Publication date:	10/08/1996
Series:	The International Library of Critical Writings in Economics series , #67
Pages:	1720
Product dimensions:	6.62(w) x 9.62(h) x (d)

About the Author

Edited by the late Gérard Debreu, former University Professor and Class of 1958 Professor of Economics and Mathematics, Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley, US and European University Institute, Italy

Editorial Reviews

Contains 98 reprinted articles, dating from 1941 to 1989. An introduction traces the research efforts of several generations of leading economists to answer why social chaos does not result when a multitude of agents, whose decisions are dictated by self-interest, produce, exchange, and consume a large number of commodities in an economy. Topics include incomplete markets, temporary equilibrium, non-convexity in production, fix-price models, rational expectations, overlapping generations, capital accumulation, optimal growth, sunspot equilibria, public goods, asymmetric information, market games, the theory of finance, infinite dimensional commodity spaces, differentiated commodities, and the new differentiate theory of GE. No index. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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