Walras, (Marie-Esprit-) Léon

(born Dec. 16, 1834, Évreux, France—died Jan. 5, 1910, Clarens, near Montreux, Switz.) French-Swiss economist. An advocate of cooperatives as an alternative to revolution, he ran a bank for producers' cooperatives with Léon Say (grandson of Jean-Baptiste Say) from 1865 to 1868. At the Academy of Lausanne, Switz. (1870–92), he began the school of economics later known (under Vilfredo Pareto) as the Lausanne school. Walras's Elements of Pure Economics (1874–77) was one of the first comprehensive mathematical analyses of general economic equilibrium. Assuming an environment of free competition, he constructed a mathematical model in which productive factors, products, and prices automatically adjust in equilibrium. He thus tied together the theories of production, exchange, money, and capital.

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