Disequilibrium

Disequilibrium in economics refers to a state of persistent imbalance in which market forces do not automatically restore equilibrium. Disequilibrium economics emerged as a formal challenge to the dominance of equilibrium models, arguing that adjustment processes are slow, partial, and constrained by institutional rigidities such as price stickiness and quantity constraints. From a systems-theoretic perspective, disequilibrium is not a temporary deviation from equilibrium but a stable regime of a complex adaptive system — one where the feedback loops that would restore equilibrium are broken or attenuated. The disequilibrium state is a different attractor, not a transient on the way to some idealized balance. The field is associated with economists like Robert Clower and Axel Leijonhufvud, who showed that when prices do not clear markets, quantity signals dominate and the economy can get stuck in persistent states of excess supply or demand. The implication is radical: most markets are not failed equilibria; they are functioning disequilibria.