IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eej/eeconj/v20y1994i2p157-169.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tautologies in Economics and the Natural Sciences

Author

Listed:
  • Leland B. Yeager

    (Auburn University)

Abstract

Propositions true by interlocking definitions or by convention occur fairly often. Recognizing their nature and usefulness helps forestall misunderstanding and quibbles. Examples include Walras's Law, the equation of exchange, microeconomic tautologies, the money-multiplier formula, the government budget constraint, the principle of comparative advantage, and certain strands of balance-of -payments analysis. Comparisons are drawn with examples from mathematics, classical mechanics, electricity, and other fields.

Suggested Citation

  • Leland B. Yeager, 1994. "Tautologies in Economics and the Natural Sciences," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 157-169, Spring.
    • Handle: RePEc:eej:eeconj:v:20:y:1994:i:2:p:157-169
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://web.holycross.edu/RePEc/eej/Archive/Volume20/V20N2P157_169.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Philipp Bagus & David Howden, 2012. "Monetary equilibrium and price stickiness: A rejoinder," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 25(3), pages 271-277, September.
    2. Joshua R. Hendrickson, 2015. "Monetary equilibrium," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 28(1), pages 53-73, March.
    3. Howden, David, 2013. "The Quantity Theory of Money," MPRA Paper 79601, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Leland Yeager & Alan Rabin, 1997. "Monetary aspects of Walras's law and the stock-flow problem," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 25(1), pages 18-36, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eej:eeconj:v:20:y:1994:i:2:p:157-169. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Victor Matheson, College of the Holy Cross (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eeaa1ea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.