In his fourth edition of Éléménts d'économie politique pure (1900), León Walras introduced the device of written pledges to eliminate path dependency: sellers of products and services write out commitments to supply certain quantities at suggested prices with no commodities actually produced and supplied until a set of prices is found at which supply and demand are equal simultaneously in every market. This brought about very serious alterations to the character of the book. Unfortunately,...

The existing literature on Walras has focused on his Elements of Pure Economics to an extent which has unbalanced our view of his work. Jan van Daal and Albert Jolink pay very careful attention to Walras' general equilibrium models, tracing their development through the five editions of his Elements. But they also place his equilibrium exercises in

Léon Walras (1834–1910) is one of the four or five most important economic theorists in the history of the science. The present book is a complete English translation of the second edition (1936) of his Études d’économie sociale (1896), in which he applies economic theory to real problems, presents the essence of his normative economic ideas, and reveals himself to have also been a great thinker on human nature, justice, mores, and the structure of scientific inquiry and knowledge....