Frank H. Hahn, 1925-

The perennial renegade, Frank H. Hahn spent most of his professional life at Cambridge as virtually the sole Neo-Walrasian member of an ardently Keynesian department. Perhaps his socialization with the irascible critics of Neoclassical economics, such as Joan Robinson, imbibed in him a considerable degree of sobriety and skepticism towards the very Neoclassical economics in which he was a master.

Frank H. Hahn viewed the Neo-Walrasian research programme without illusions - remaining one of its most ardent and articulate defenders but, unique among Neoclassical economists, also acknowledging and stressing its limits clearly. (e.g. 1970, 1973, 1974, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1985)  Nonetheless Hahn remained an critic of all systems -  Monetarist, New Classical, Neo-Ricardian, Post Keynesian, all. But he was not a dogmatic nihilist: if his methodological position could be summed up in a phrase, it would might be "let a hundred flowers bloom - but take none too seriously."

His positive contributions are many: his work can be more-or-less divided into concerns over general equilibrium (1971), the tatonnement and non-tatonnement stability of multi-market equilibrium (1958, 1962, 1970, 1982), the theory of money in sequence economies (1965, 1971, 1973),  the theory of economic growth with heterogeneous stores of value (1966, 1968, 1969, 1973), conjectural equilibria (1977) and combining all these with each other. Frank H. Hahn is presently basking in the sun of Siena, Italy.

Major Works of Frank H. Hahn

• "The Share of Wages in the Trade Cycle", 1950, EJ
• "The Share of Wages in National Income", 1951, Oxford EP
• "The Rate of Interest in General Equilibrium Analysis", 1955, EJ.
• "Gross Substitutes and the Dynamic Stability of General Equilibrium", 1958, Econometrica.
• "The Patinkin Controversy", 1960, RES
• "The Stability of Growth Equilibrium", 1960, QJE
• "Money, Dynamic Stability and Growth", 1961, Metroeconomica
• "A Stable Adjustment Process for a Competitive Economy", 1962, RES.
• "A Theorem on Non-Tatonnement Stability" with T.Negishi, 1962, Econometrica.
• "On the Stability of a Pure Exchange Equilibrium", 1962, IER.
• "The Stability of the Cournot Oligopoly Solution", 1962, RES
• "On the Disequilibrium Behavior of a Multi-Sectoral Growth Model", 1963, EJ
• "The Theory of Economic Growth: A survey", with R.C.O.Matthews, 1964, EJ.
• "On Some Problems of Proving the Existence of an Equilibrium in a Monetary Economy", 1965, in Hahn and Brechling, editors, Theory of Interest Rates.
• "Equilibrium Dynamics with Heterogeneous Capital Goods", 1966, QJE
• "On Warranted Growth Paths", 1968, RES.
• "On Money and Growth", 1969, JMCB.
• "Some Adjustment Problems", 1970, Econometrica.
• General Competitive Analysis, with K.J. Arrow, 1971.
• "Equilibrium with Transactions Costs", 1971, Econometrica.
• "The Winter of Our Discontent", 1973, Economica.
• "On Some Equilibrium Growth Paths", 1973, in Mirrlees and Stern, editors, Models of Economic Growth.
• "On Transactions Costs, Inessential Sequence Economics and Money", 1973, RES.
• On the Notion of Equilibrium in Economics, 1974.
• "Revival of Political Economy: The wrong issues and the wrong arguments", 1975, Economic Record
• "Keynesian Economics and General Equilibrium Theory: Reflections on some current debates", 1977, in Harcourt, editor, Microeconomic Foundations of Macroeconomics.
• "Monetarism and Economic Theory", 1980, Economica
• "General Equilibrium Theory", 1981, in Bell and Kristol, editors, Crisis in Economic Theory
• Money and Inflation, 1982.
• "Reflections on the Invisible Hand", 1982, Lloyd's Bank Review.
• "The Neo-Ricardians", 1982, Cambridge JE.
• "Stability", 1982, in Arrow and Intriligator, editors, Handbook of Mathematical Econ. - intro
• "Why I am Not a Monetarist", in Hahn, 1984.
• Equilibrium and Macroeconomics, 1984.
• "In Praise of Economic Theory", in Hahn, 1985.
• Money, Growth and Stability, 1985.
• Editor, Handbook of Monetary Economics, I - II. with B. Friedman, 1990 - intro & contents
• "Liquidity", 1988, in Friedman and Hahn, 1990, Handbook of Monetary Economics - intro
• Critical Essay on Modern Macroeconomic Theory, with R.M. Solow, 1995.
• "A Remark on Incomplete Market Equilibrium", 1999, in Chichilnisky, editor, Markets, Information and Uncertainty.
• "Notes on Sequence Economies, Transaction Costs and Uncertainty", with K.J. Arrow , 1999, JET

Resources on Frank Hahn

• HET Pages: Sequence Economies,  Local Multi-Market Stability, Non-Tatonnement Stability, Critique of Monetarism
• Citation on induction into NAS
• Hahn Profile at Elsevier/North-Holland
• F.H. Hahn Page at LSE History