On the Existence of a Competitive Equilibrium: 1930-1954

Abstract

This paper was conceived in conversations with my colleague Neil B. de Marchi between 1979 and 1981 and born in a seminar we jointly taught at Duke in Spring 1982 with Anthony Brewer (visiting from the University of Bristol). A preliminary version of the paper was read at the History of Economics Society Meetings at Duke in May 1982. I am deeply grateful to Kenneth Arrow, John Chipman, Gerard Debreu, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, Tjalling Koopmans, Lionel McKenzie, Gerhard Tintner, and Allen Wallis for answering many questions posed to them in several letters, and for their willingness to allow me to quote from their responses in this paper.