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Concept
Foundations of Economic Analysis
Summary
Foundations of Economic Analysis is a book by Paul A. Samuelson published in 1947 (Enlarged ed., 1983) by Harvard University Press. It is based on Samuelson's 1941 doctoral dissertation at Harvard University. The book sought to demonstrate a common mathematical structure underlying multiple branches of economics from two basic principles: maximizing behavior of agents (such as of utility by consumers and profits by firms) and stability of equilibrium as to economic systems (such as markets or economies). Among other contributions, it advanced the theory of index numbers and generalized welfare economics. It is especially known for definitively stating and formalizing qualitative and quantitative versions of the "comparative statics" method for calculating how a change in any parameter (say, a change in tax rates) affects an economic system. One of its key insights about comparative statics, called the correspondence principle, states that stability of equilibrium implies testable predictions about how the equilibrium changes when parameters are changed.
The front page quotes the motto of J. Willard Gibbs: "Mathematics is a language." The book begins with this statement:
The existence of analogies between central features of various theories implies the existence of a general theory which underlies the particular theories and unifies them with respect to those central features. This fundamental principle of generalization by abstraction was enunciated by the eminent American mathematician E. H. Moore more than thirty years ago. It is the purpose of the pages that follow to work out its implications for theoretical and applied economics.
Its other stated purpose (p. 3) is to show how operationally meaningful theorems can be described with a small number of analogous methods. Thus, "a general theory of economic theories" (1983, p. xxvi).
The body of the book is 353 pages. Topics and applications covered (all in terms of theory) include the following.
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