The presentation of Walras’s work is problematic because it is both central to economic theory and highly controversial.
The general economic equilibrium theory occupies a privileged place in post-war theoretical developments; a boldly stripped-down version of the general economic equilibrium model forms the basis even of macroeconomic approaches such as the real business cycles and dynamic stochastic general equilibrium theories.
At the same time, the reconstruction of Walras’s contribution made considerable progress beyond what it was in the 1980s, thanks to the publication of Auguste and Leon Walras’s ^uvres economiques completes (hereafter OEC followed by the volume, page if appropriate and page of English translation if available and adequate). New interpretations have thus appeared, sometimes conflicting with each other.The purpose of this entry is to give a summary account of Leon Walras’s political and social economy in his work as a whole. A particular attention is paid to the three main volumes - the famous “triptych”: Elements d’economie politique pure, Etudes d’economie sociale and Etudes d’economie appliquee. This corpus is presented following the way the Walrasian historiography has evolved over the past 50 years, and the themes reflect the purpose Walras gave to his work: the scientific solution to the question sociale, or rather “to two social questions plus one”: the traditional social question, the problem of monopolies, and that of money.
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- The presentation of Walras’s work is problematic because it is both central to economic theory and highly controversial.
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