Joan Robinson and ‘Getting into Equilibrium’, in Short and Long Periods

It is not my purpose in this brief note to alter anything in that restrospective treatment of Joan Robinson’s economics in which I had a share (Gram and Walsh, 1983), but rather to add some further thoughts on the specific topic of her objections to the notion of ‘getting into equilibrium’, in both short periods and long. In particular, I shall argue that her well-known objections to ‘getting into equilibrium’ have been vindicated by some of the most recent theoretical work on both short-and long-period models. What is both sad and ironic is that she was probably seldom in the minds of the (relatively) younger theorists whose herculean mathematical labors have led them at last to reach a ‘Pole’ (an image of hers) where her by now somewhat tattered flag has been flying for so many years.