Lutz and Equilibrium Theories of the Business Cycle

Abstract

The incorporation of cyclical phenomenon into an equilibrium analytical framework has long been considered as a fundamental and controversial issue until Lucas in the early 1970s proposed an answer to this dilemma. Different authors have then questioned the (dis-)continuity one could observe between the interwar period and Lucas’s program of research. In this debate, Lutz’s analysis has been quite ignored. The purpose of this paper is to investigate Lutz’s Konjunkturproblem in der Nationalökonomie (1932), an important contribution on the origins of modern equilibrium business-cycle theories.

Keywords

• Lutz
• equilibrium
• business cycles theory
• statics
• dynamics