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A HISTORY OF THE HAYEKIAN TRIANGLE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2026

Renaud Fillieule Open the ORCID record for Renaud Fillieule [Opens in a new window]
Renaud Fillieule*
Affiliation:
Faculté des sciences économiques, sociales et des territoires, Lille University, France.
*
Email: renaud.fillieule@univ-lille.fr.
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Abstract

This paper invites reflection on the nature and role of visual illustration in economics, through a historical account of the “Hayekian triangle,” a graphical representation devised by Friedrich A. Hayek to depict the structure of production and introduced in his 1931 book Prices and Production. Tracing its origins back to Hayek’s earlier “schemes” in 1929, the paper then examines the triangle’s evolution and its applications in visualizing economic phenomena such as capital accumulation and business cycles. The paper also highlights key developments by contemporaries and successors, such as Evan F. M. Durbin, Murray N. Rothbard, and Roger W. Garrison, as well as more recent formalizations that integrate mathematical precision.

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Type
Article
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Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , March 2026 , pp. 85 - 104
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of History of Economics Society

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Footnotes

We are very grateful to the anonymous referees for their insightful comments and suggestions, which have greatly improved the revised version of this paper.

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