FIRST PRINTING OF MCKENZIE'S GROUNDBREAKING "ON EQUILIBRIUM IN GRAHAM'S MODEL OF WORLD TRADE AND OTHER COMPETITIVE SYSTEMS" IN THE APRIL 1954 ISSUE OF ECONOMETRICA

MCKENZIE, Lionel. "On Equilibrium in Graham's Model of World Trade and Other Competitive Systems." IN: Econometrica, Volume 22, Number 2, pp. 147-61. Chicago: Waverly Press, April, 1954. Large octavo, original gray paper wrappers. $2200.

First edition of McKenzie's compelling work on the existence of a competitive equilibrium, one of his greatest contributions to economics.

"In our article of 1954 (Arrow & Debreu, 'Existence of an Equilibrium for a Competitive Economy,' Econometrica, Vol. 22, No. 3, July 1954, pp. 265-90), Arrow and I cast a competitive economy in the form of a social system of the preceding type. The agents are the consumers, the producers, and a fictitious price-setter. An appropriate definition of the set of reactions of the price-setter to an excess demand vector makes the concept of equilibrium for that social system equivalent to the concept of competitive equilibrium for the original economy. In this manner a proof of existence, resting ultimately on Kakutani's theorem, was obtained for an equilibrium of an economy made up of interacting consumers and producers. In the early '50s, the time had undoubtedly come for solutions of the existence problem. In addition to the work of Arrow and me, begun independently and completed jointly, Lionel McKenzie at Duke University proved the existence of a 'Equilibrium in Graham's Model of World Trade and Other Competitive Systems' [1954], also using Kakutan's Theorem" (Gerard Debreu, 'Economic theory in the mathematical mode,' Nobel Memorial Lecture, 8 December, 1983). "Professor McKenzie's contributions were to 'high mathematical theory—the nuts and bolts of what economists learn—the core of their craft,' says E. Roy Weintraub, professor of economics at Duke University who has written a retrospective on Professor McKenzie's work. He was the first to provide the now most widely employed proof for how economies, through competitive pricing, find a state in which the amount of every good supplied is equal to the demand, a condition economists call general equilibrium, says Professor Weintraub. 'Every economics graduate student today has to learn that proof'… During his career he published more than 45 academic papers, including the seminal study, 'On Equilibrium in Graham's Model of World Trade and Other Competitive Systems'" (University of Rochester). Owner stamp of Vanderbilt economist Fred M. Westfield on front wrapper. Westfield was known for his expertise in regulation and vertical integration.

Interior fine, minor rubbing and toning to extremities of wrappers.