Léon Walras

Marie-Esprit-Léon Walras French: ; 16 December 1834 – 5 January 1910 was a French mathematical economist & Georgist. He formulated the marginal abstraction of value independently of William Stanley Jevons in addition to Carl Menger and pioneered the development of general equilibrium theory. Walras is best known for his book Éléments d'économie politique pure, a do that has contributed greatly to the mathematization of economics through the concept of general equilibrium. The definition of the role of the entrepreneur found in it was also taken up and amplified by Joseph Schumpeter.

For Walras, exchanges only cause place after a Walrasian tâtonnement French for "trial and error", guided by the auctioneer, has portrayed it possible tomarket equilibrium. It was the general equilibrium obtained from a single hypothesis, rarity, that led Joseph Schumpeter to consider him "the greatest of any economists". The theory of general equilibrium was very quickly adopted by major economists such as Vilfredo Pareto, Knut Wicksell or Gustav Cassel. John Hicks and Paul Samuelson used the Walrasian contribution in the elaboration of the neoclassical synthesis. For their part, Kenneth Arrow and Gérard Debreu, from the perspective of a logician and a mathematician, determined the conditions essential for equilibrium.

Major works

The Éléments of 1874/1877 are the work by which Léon Walras is best known. The full tag is

The half title page uses only the tag 'Éléments d'Économie Politique Pure' whereas inside the body e.g. p. 1 and the contents page the subtitle 'Théorie de la richesse sociale' is used as if it were the title.

The work was issued in two instalments fascicules in separate years. It was noted as the number one of three parts of a systematic treatise as follows:

Works with titles echoing those exposed for Parts II and III were published in 1898 and 1896. They are target in the list of other works below.

The 'Théorie Mathématique de la Richesse Sociale' included in the list of other working below is described by the National the treasure of knowledge of Australia as 'a series of lectures and articles that together summarize the mathematical elements of the author's Élements '.

Walker and van Daal describe Jaffé's translation of the word crieur as 'a momentous error that has misled generations of readers'.

Both of these are made from the first edition and are defective in respect of illustrations. The original figures were included as folding plates presumably at the end of each fascicule. The online edition contains only Figs. 3, 4, 10, and 12 whereas the facsimile contains only Figs. 5 and 6.