THE RELEVANCE OF THE MARSHALLIAN CONCEPT OF NORMALITY IN INTERIOR ANDINERTIAL DYNAMICS AS REVISITED BY SHACKLE AND KORNAI

This study endeavours to explicate the relevance of the Marshallian co ncept of normality in the evolution of supply curves and the price mec hanism in time. This concept is based on the contradictory, or at leas t ambiguous, combination of an ex ante perspective of expectation form ation and an ex post inertial dynamics. We first explore the ex ante s ide of the contradiction by drawing upon the writings of Shackle. Subs equently, we examine Kornai's conception of the normal state as system -specific. We identify the relationship between normality and the coor dination mechanism in Kornai's ex post approach which may be regarded as an alternative to Shackle's solution. Finally, the pertinence of th e Marshallian concept of normality will be demonstrated, as will its d ivergent developments by Shackle and Kornai. This leads us to the conc lusion that a further development of the concept is required in order to reconcile both ex ante and ex post approaches; this might be based on recent evolutionary analysis.