Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/313108 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2024
Series/Report no.: 
CHOPE Working Paper No. 2024-12
Publisher: 
Duke University, Center for the History of Political Economy (CHOPE), Durham, NC
Abstract: 
This article examines George Christopher Archibald's contributions to monopolistic competition theory, which he approached from multiple perspectives throughout his career. In the 1950s, he critiqued this theory for its vague definitions and for prompting several economists to abandon profit maximization by firms. In the 1960s, influenced by the debates at the LSE on falsificationism and qualitative economics, he analyzed this theory's capacity to generate testable predictions, sparking a controversy with Stigler and Friedman. Finally, in the 1970s, he incorporated the characteristics approach, popularized by Lancaster, into this theory, thereby contributing to the modern reformulation of the theory of monopolistic competition.
Subjects: 
monopolistic competition
George Christopher Archibald
qualitative economics
falsificationism
characteristics approach
JEL: 
B21
B41
D40
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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