Monday, January 12, 2009

Hicks Invents Arrow-Debreu Model Of Intertemporal Equilibrium

"It is possible, at the other extreme, to conceive of an economy in which, for a considerable period ahead, everything was fixed up in advance. If all goods were bought and sold forward, not only would current demands and supplies be matched, but also planned demand and supplies. In such a 'Futures Economy' ... plans would be co-ordinated; and, for practical purposes, expectations would be co-ordinated too. (The price which would govern a firm's planned output for a particular future week would be the futures price, and not its own individual price-expectation.)" -- J. R. Hicks, Value and Capital: An Inquiry into Some Fundamental Principles of Economic Theory, Second edition, Oxford University Press, p. 136
Hat tip to Pierangelo Garegnani.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Uhm, I am not so sure that the neoclassicals have a theory of capital... :-)