The role of Walras in and for Schumpeter's work: an intellectual link revisited

All his life along, as an historian of economic thought, Schumpeter paid to Léon Walras's contribution the specific tribute it deserves in accordance with the part it played in the process of construction of our discipline. By the way, Schumpeter also used some of Walras's analytical achievements in order to build his own theories of the circular flow and of economic development. It is not obvious however to understand if Schumpeter really connected both these tasks and, if it is the case, how he actually did it. Now, this is precisely the aim of the contribution which suggests: (i) to characterize the methodological process of reductionism of Léon Walras's approach to economics proposed by Schumpeter; (ii) to put forward how Schumpeter inserted this reductionist interpretation into his own theory of economic development.