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Walras’s Law

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Abstract

Walras’s Law is an expression of the interdependence among the excess-demand equations of a general-equilibrium system that stems from the budget constraint. It is so called because Walras made use of this interdependence from the first edition of his Eléments d’économie politique pure through the fourth, which for all practical purposes is identical with the definitive edition. Walras presents the argument for an exchange economy and extends his analysis to deal first with a simple production economy and then with one in which capital formation also takes place. Here, Walras’s Law is derived in a more general way than usual.

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Patinkin, D. (2018). Walras’s Law. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1436

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