Exploring General Equilibrium (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "The general equilibrium model, as developed by Walras (1874), von Neumann (1945), Arrow (1953, 1964), and Debreu (1959), is remarkable..." (more)
Key Phrases: match between wants, intangible physical capital, intervening unemployment, Great Depression, United States, World War (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Fischer Black is known for his brilliance as well as his sometimes controversial opinions. Highly respected for his scholarly writings in finance, he now moves into different territory with this incisive, unconventional assessment of general equilibrium theory and what that theory reveals about business cycles, growth, and labor economics. The general equilibrium approach, Black asserts, can be used to explain most of the economy's behavior. It can explain business cycles and growth without using sticky prices, irrationality, economies of scale, or imperfect competition. It can explain the volatility of consumption, output, sales, investment, and inventories with axiomatic utility and constant-returns-to-scale production. It can explain temporary layoffs, job changes with and without intervening unemployment, and the behavior of vacancies. It can explain lower wages in part-time jobs, wages that increase rapidly with time on the job, and the forces that cause migration from poor to rich countries. Although the general equilibrium approach can't be tested in conventional ways, it can be used to generate examples that explain stylized facts -- generalized observations from the real world -- that have preoccupied macroeconomists for the last decade. Black contrasts his interpretation of these facts with conventional interpretations. Finally, he reviews a substantial body of literature on these topics.

About the Author

Fischer Black, former Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business and late of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, was a partner at Goldman, Sachs and Company.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (July 6, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262023822
• ISBN-13: 978-0262023825
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,521,326 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A deeply insightful anti-Economics economics book, July 27, 2006

By	Aaron C. Brown (New York, New York United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Fischer Black was among the most brilliant economists of the 20th century, with an eccentric style. This book is a masterpiece that goes back to Von Neumann-Morgenstern first principles to reconstruct macroeconomics, stripping away errors due to oversimplified models and overaggregated data. The argument is short and easy to understand, although its subtleties repay many rereadings. The bulk of the book consists of short refutations of other views, organized alphabetically by economist last name (Fischer was an eccentric guy). These contain many important insights, although they require familiarity with economics terminology to understand, and the random topical order is annoying.

4.0 out of 5 stars Good resource but not for learning macroeconomics, November 1, 2000

By	David Mitchell (Bay Area, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is an excellent resource for a graduate student in economics to have (or for a professor). It has good summaries of many articles and clear information on a wide variety of issues relating to macroeconomics. However, it would be extremely difficult to learn macroeconomics from this book. It assumes that you already have a wide knowledge.