Out of Equilibrium: Bases, Basics, Policies, and Accounts

New regulation of EU cohesion policy prescribes ex ante impact eval- uations. These imply a vision of the working of a process of economic change. A theory of change based on the concept of equilibrium (which is a situation in which by definition change is not liable to occur) being paradoxical, the present article aims at presenting bases and basics of Amendola’s out-of-equilibrium approach in a perspective that is instru- mental in the above-referred concrete policy issue. Accordingly, after reviewing the essentials of John Hicks’ concern with the construction of an out-of-equilibrium approach, the key concepts at play in Amendola and Gaffard’s out-of-equilibrium model are summarized and, after considering the resulting perspective on policy making, and touching on EU o�cial framework for institutional accounts, the sequence of ac- counts implicit in the out-of-equilibrium model is eventually derived.