Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- CAUSES OF GROWTH AND STAGNATION IN THE WORLD ECONOMY
- FIRST LECTURE Equilibrium Theory and Growth Theory
- SECOND LECTURE Alternative Approaches to Growth Theory
- THIRD LECTURE The Problem of Intersectoral Balance
- FOURTH LECTURE The Effects of Interregional and International Competition
- FIFTH LECTURE Policy Implications of the Current World Situation
- DISCUSSION
- NICHOLAS KALDOR, A BIOGRAPHY, by A. P. Thirlwall
- BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WORKS OF NICHOLAS KALDOR, compiled by Ferdinando Targetti
- BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS CITED
- LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
- INDEX
- Cambridge Cultural Social Studies
FIRST LECTURE - Equilibrium Theory and Growth Theory
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- CAUSES OF GROWTH AND STAGNATION IN THE WORLD ECONOMY
- FIRST LECTURE Equilibrium Theory and Growth Theory
- SECOND LECTURE Alternative Approaches to Growth Theory
- THIRD LECTURE The Problem of Intersectoral Balance
- FOURTH LECTURE The Effects of Interregional and International Competition
- FIFTH LECTURE Policy Implications of the Current World Situation
- DISCUSSION
- NICHOLAS KALDOR, A BIOGRAPHY, by A. P. Thirlwall
- BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WORKS OF NICHOLAS KALDOR, compiled by Ferdinando Targetti
- BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS CITED
- LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
- INDEX
- Cambridge Cultural Social Studies
Summary
Since the very beginning, the study of economics has served two purposes, though economists are not always conscious of this duality. One concerned the problem of how in a de-centralised, “undirected” market economy, scarce resources are allocated among different uses in the right proportions – in the proportions in which they give the highest satisfaction to consumers as a body – in a specific Pareto sense that no one could be better off with any alternative allocation, without making someone else worse off.
The second object has been to explore the determinants of economic progress – what are the critical factors which make for continued growth, be it through the growth of productive resources or the improvement of knowledge or technology; and how far the results or the characteristic features of “equilibrium economics” (which is the subject matter of the first inquiry) have their counterpart in the second.
The first aspect involves the detailed analysis of the characteristics of the states of general economic equilibrium, considered as the ultimate outcome of an impersonal and, one might say, unconscious process of coordination of the decisions and actions of innumerable individuals, while the second aims to isolate the underlying forces which cause continued change and development.
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- Causes of Growth and Stagnation in the World Economy , pp. 3 - 20Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996