Quotes from book
Foundations of Economic Analysis

Name: Foundations of Economic Analysis
Author: Paul A. Samuelson

Foundations of Economic Analysis is a book by Paul A. Samuelson published in 1947 by Harvard University Press. It is based on Samuelson's 1941 doctoral dissertation at Harvard University. The book sought to demonstrate a common mathematical structure underlying multiple branches of economics from two basic principles: maximizing behavior of agents and stability of equilibrium as to economic systems . Among other contributions, it advanced the theory of index numbers and generalized welfare economics. It is especially known for definitively stating and formalizing qualitative and quantitative versions of the "comparative statics" method for calculating how a change in any parameter affects an economic system. One of its key insights about comparative statics, called the correspondence principle, states that stability of equilibrium implies testable predictions about how the equilibrium changes when parameters are changed.

“In the preface to the reissue of Risk, Uncertainty and Proﬁt, Frank Knight makes the penetrating observation that under the conditions envisaged above the velocity of circulation would become inﬁnite and so would the price level. This is perhaps an over-dramatic way of saying that nobody would hold money, and it would become a free good to go into the category of shell and other things which once served as money. We should expect too that it would not only pass out of circulation, but it would cease to be used as a conventional numeraire in terms of which prices are expressed. Interest bearing money would emerge. Of course, the above does not happen in real life, precisely because uncertainty, contingency needs, non-synchronization of revenues and outlay, transaction frictions, etc., etc., all are with us. But the abstract special case analyzed above should warn us against the facile assumption that the average levels of the structure of interest rates are determined solely or primarily by these differential factors. At times they are primary, and at other times, such as the twenties in this country, they may not be. As a generalization I should hazard the hypothesis that they are likely to be of great importance in an economy in which there is a “quasi-zero" rate of interest. I think by this hypothesis one can explain many of the anomalies of the United States money market in the thirties.”

Paul A. Samuelson book Foundations of Economic Analysis

Source: 1940s, Foundations of Economic Analysis, 1947, Ch. 5 : Theory of Consumer’s Behavior

“The general method involved may be very simply stated. In cases where the equilibrium values of our variables can be regarded as the solutions of an extremum (maximum or minimum) problem, it is often possible regardless of the number of variables involved to determine unambiguously the qualitative behavior of our solution values in respect to changes of parameters.”

Paul A. Samuelson book Foundations of Economic Analysis

Source: 1940s, Foundations of Economic Analysis, 1947, Ch. 2 : The Theory of Maximizing Behavior

“The existence of analogies between central features of various theories implies the existence of a general theory which underlies the particular theories and unifies them with respect to those central features. This fundamental principle of generalization by abstraction was enunicated by the eminent American mathematician E. H. Moore more than thirty years ago. It is the purpose of the pages that follow to work out its implication for theoretical and applied economics.”

Paul A. Samuelson book Foundations of Economic Analysis

Source: 1940s, Foundations of Economic Analysis, 1947, Ch. 1 : Introduction