ABSTRACT
The method of a reconstruction has been adopted for three separate reasons. The first is the simple fact that the members of the Stockholm School very seldom referred in any detail to each other's works, and it is therefore necessary to find substantive evidence which can help to show the connection which existed between its individual members. Secondly, quite often a particular work contains an explicit analysis of the method to be used for solving certain problems, but our analysis shows in fact that the actual application of the method cannot give the results aimed at. For example, Lindahl used temporary equilibrium to explain forced savings, but from his explicit definition of this method it must follow that if temporary equilibrium rules, then such a phenomenon cannot even exist (cp. sect. IV:3:3:1). Another example is Myrdal's attempt to use his method of analysing tendencies at a point in time to explain a cumulative process, but his method is a singleperiod analysis and cannot therefore be used for developing a multi-period sequence like the cumulative process (cp. sect. VI:2:1). However, this type of contradiction between explicit method and its use provides a momentum for the development of the dynamic method itself, since it may serve as a catalyst for later attempts to develop the method in such a way that these shortcomings are superceded. The last reason stems from the fact that it is possible to utilize more recent developments in dynamic method to help to characterize the formal propositions and assumptions that will define a particular method. The more exact mathematical formulations of intertemporal equilibrium in the 1950's will thus help us to analyse the inconsistencies in Lindahl's formulations of 1929 (cp. sect. IV:2:3a:2).
