THE RHETORIC OF DUALITY

Agricultural economists' view of duality has often assumed the charact eristics of an ambivalent relation. During the eighties, several autho rs published papers which put in doubt this or that aspect of duality. This study emphasizes the notion that duality is a time-honored appro ach suitable for solving problems that can be expressed mathematically . Contrary to many assertions that appeared in the agricultural econom ics literature, duality does not seem to suffer from any theoretical l imitations any more than does the formulation of the primal problem. T he article presents two problems that can be solved with dual methods. The authors are incapable of deriving the same results using a primal approach.