Joan Robinson's Critique of Equilibrium: An Appraisal

Abstract

Joan Robinson devoted much of her energy to critiquing equilibrium analysis, or what she was accustomed to calling Walrasian economics.In her various writings she returned again and again to the idea that Walrasian economics necessarily misdirected analysis in macroeconomics, capital theory, distribution theory, and value theory.Many of her writings made mention of Walrasian equilibrium, usually in the context of the wrong way to look at a particular problem.Indeed, for Robinson, the Walrasian theory came to stand for the intellectual opposition as it were, for the "others" who had got it wrong, where the "it" was anything from the measurement of capital to the role of expectations in long run investment decisions.My task today is a simple one.First I shall identify the central elements of Robinson's attack on Walrasian economics and then sketch what modern authors now understand to be the main points of the "neo-Walrasian research program."Finally, I shall compare Robinson's understanding of, and critique of, that program with the program itself.From this, I shall argue that Robinson's analysis flowed from her flawed understanding of the nature and role of equilibrium in the neo-Walrasian program.I. Robinson on Equilibrium

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