Holcombe (economics, Florida State U.) argues that economic equilibrium models fail to fully account for the factors that produce prosperity, which has in turn misled economic policy and a
misunderstanding of economic progress. Taking market economies as unquestionably vindicated by history, Holcombe interrogates the market process in order to emphasize the dynamism that make
markets successful economic regimes. He considers market-clearing forces, the innovative nature of firms and their role in the market, the relationship between growth and progress, welfare
policy and theory, rent-seeking in creative economies, and the economy as a thing that evolves. The key to Holcombe’s analysis is how competition generates dynamism in economic production and
coordination, which is what produces the prosperity (understood as wealth and material well-being) that equilibrium models fail to grasp with their static assumptions. Annotation ©2013 Book
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