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Ceteris Paribus

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The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics

Abstract

The Latin phrase ‘ceteris paribus’, which translates as ‘other things the same’, is much invoked by economists. Its popularity stems from its prominent use by Alfred Marshall (1920, pp. xiv–xv, 366–70), who invented the metaphor of ‘the pound called Coeteris Paribus’ – pound being used here in the same sense as in impoundment – in which are imprisoned ‘those disturbing causes, whose wanderings happen to be inconvenient’ (Marshall 1920, p. 366).

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Whitaker, J.K. (2018). Ceteris Paribus. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_346

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