VI. The Survival of Mathematical Economics
This argument would only be confused by expanding the notation into one involving separate terms and fractions involving determinants. Diagrams cannot help here and a prose translation would presumably have to cover an explanation about the inversion of matrices and the meaning of determinants. This argument, that AY = S-1(AJ) or something even more elaborate, is in principle involved whenever one wishes to find the effect of a given disturbance on a position of equilibrium involving many simultaneous conditions. Marshall himself insisted on the fact that economic variables are interconnected and determined in just this way.7a The difficulty in making AY = S-1(AI) intelligible to persons who have not found time to learn about matrices is therefore a main obstacle in getting them to understand the ramifications of any change involving three or more interdependent variables. A set of numerical examples is probably the best available substitute for matrix algebra in cases of this kind, but it is a very poor substitute indeed. Whilst the axioms and the results should be fully translated into prose, only minor concessions should be made to the semi-mathematician in the exposition of the proof itself. But there remains one further subject that is very much the concern of the non-mathematical reader. This is the possible effects of relaxing the simplifying assumptions. Usually the writer can only guess at such effects by using his mathematical judgment. Only the mathematical readers will be able to pronounce an informed verdict on the worth of such guesses. But the non-mathematical reader will be very interested in precisely these effects and it is therefore essential that any such guesses should be accurately translated into language which both he and the mathematicians can understand. Editors may ask their contributors to bear such precepts as these in mind when compiling articles on economic theory. But they are no more than a guide, and the editor who insisted on literal obedience to them would be unlikely to publish much in this field.