Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/283924 
Year of Publication: 
2023
Series/Report no.: 
CHOPE Working Paper No. 2023-09
Publisher: 
Duke University, Center for the History of Political Economy (CHOPE), Durham, NC
Abstract: 
This paper documents an early fork in the development of macroeconomics, by examining a debate between the Dutch economists Jan Tinbergen and Johan Koopmans. In a 1932 paper, Tinbergen argued that two firms could be stuck in a 'bad' equilibrium in the absence of a coordinated action to increase employment. Koopmans replied with a paper demonstrating that multiple equilibria in an exchange economy could not be ranked on the basis of their productive efficiency. This debate contributed to a larger turn away from dynamizing the general equilibrium model, towards the new field of macrodynamics, with long-ranging consequences for the field.
Subjects: 
coordination
Jan Tinbergen
multiple equilibria
macroeconomics
generalequilibrium
JEL: 
B21
B23
B31
C62
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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