The modern Italian debate on the Walrasian theory of capitalization (1960-1971)

Abstract

Historians have studied the intellectual relationships between Walrasian eco-nomic thought and the Italian tradition with a primary focus on nineteenth-century economic thought. Nevertheless, in the 1960s heated controversy over Walras's capitalization theory, prompted by Sraffa (1960) and, even more, by Garegnani (1960), developed in Italy. This paper aims to reconstruct that debate to illustrate that, even during such a period of critical reappraisal, a number of Ital-ian economists held a fundamentally sceptical attitude towards a criticism of Walras's scheme.