Economic dynamics as a succession of equilibria: The path traveled by Morishima

In the paper I bring to the attention of the economists and historians of economic thought the idea of economic dynamics that can be found in the first book by Morishima published in 1950 but has been totally overlooked. It has a great interest not only because there it appears for the first time the application of new mathematical concepts (“structural stability”) but also because Morishima pursues a way of dynamizing general equilibrium theory that has been neglected in the postwar developments inspired by Samuelson's Foundations. The paper has three parts. In the first and second I outline the development of economic dynamics and its applications to general equilibrium elaborated by Morishima; in the third a comparison between the prevailing idea of economic dynamics as originally put forward by Samuelson and that elaborated by Morishima is advanced and discussed.

► Description of the method of successive equilibria set by Morishima in his 1950 book.
► Exposition of its various applications to general equilibrium models.
► Discussion of the new concept of structural stability first used in economics.
► The method is compared to Samuelson's method elaborated in the Foundations.
► Weakness and strength of the two methods are briefly discussed.