Conclusion

Abstract

This volume began by observing Marshall’s declaration that the Mecca of the economist lies in economic biology (Principles: xiv), together with Kenneth Arrow’s (1995: 1618) prediction, issued a century later, that economic theory may well embrace the ‘biological’ as a more appropriate paradigm than the equilibrium models ‘analogous to mechanics’. However, it has clearly been the case that, subsequent to Marshall, economic theory has evolved in a form that has departed significantly from Marshall’s economic biology Mecca, and continues to travel in a direction that defies Arrow’s prediction. The economics profession at large is more inclined to recognise Marshall as a prominent pioneering equilibrium theorist, and Arrow as a leading exponent and defender of modern equilibrium analysis.