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The Italian economist Enrico Barone (1859-1924) is best known for his contributions to marginal productivity theory and the socialist planning debate. This paper analyzes Barones contributions to the theory of perfect competition which are largely ignored in the secondary literature. It includes his methodology; the definition, conditions and outcomes of perfect competition; the institutional context of perfect competition; and the adjustment process. It also includes some of Barones graphs that illustrate the working of perfect competition. The paper demonstrates that Barone deserves a place in the history of the theory of perfect competition.
Keywords: Enrico Barone, history of economics, Italian marginalism, perfect competition, general equilibrium.
La concurrence parfaite selon Enrico Barone
L'économiste italien Enrico Barone (18591924) est principalement connu pour ses contributions à la théorie de la productivité marínale et au débat sur la planification socialiste. Ce papier analyse les contributions de Barone à la théorie de la concurrence parfaite, contributions largement ignorées dans la littérature secondaire. Il inclut sa méthodologie; ia définition, les conditions et les conséquences de la concurrence parfaite; son contexte institutionnel; et le processus d'ajustement. Il contient également certains graphiques de Barone qui illustrent le fonctionnement de la concurrence parfaite. Le papier démontre que Barone mérite une place dans l'histoire de la théorie de la concurrence parfaite.
Mots-clefs : Enrico Barone, histoire de la théorie économique, marginalisme italien, concurrence parfaite, équilibre général.
JEL classification: B61, B31, D4l, D5
1. Introduction
The Italian economist Enrico Barone (1859-1924) is well known for elaborating the theory of marginal productivity and for his seminal contributions to the socialist calculation debate. Schumpeter [(1954) 1976: 994] mentions him several times, and there are studies on different aspects of his economic thought.4 In this paper we follow the development of Barone's ideas on the concept of perfect competition throughout his career as an economist.
The literature on the history of the concept of competition reveals many different approaches. One of these obviously concerns perfect competition; it is usually said to start with Cournot, passing via Knight to end up with Joan Robinson and Chamberlin.5 Nevertheless, although Knight would appear to owe his "rigorous notion of equilibrium" to Pareto and Barone [Marchionatti, 2003: 66] ,6 the secondary literature on perfect competition does not mention Barone, probably because none...