Analogies with rational mechanics played a pivotal role in the search for formal models in economics. In the period between the two world wars, a small group of mathematical economists tried to extend this view from statics to dynamics. The main result was the extensive application of calculus of variations to obtain a dynamic representation of economic variables. This approach began with the contributions put forward by Griffith C. Evans, a mathematician who, in the first phase of his scientific career, published widely in economics. Evans’s research was further developed by his student Charles Roos. At the international level, this dynamic approach found its main followers in Italy, within the Paretian tradition. During the 1930s, Luigi Amoroso, the leading exponent of the Paretian School, made major contributions, along with his student Giulio La Volpe, that anticipated the concept of temporary equilibrium. The analysis of the application of the calculus of variations to economic dynamics in the interwar period raises a set of questions on the application of mathematics designed to study mechanics and physics to economics.

The Paretian school was one of the most important schools of economic\ud thought in the interwar period in Italy. It comprised a small but combative\ud group of economists, among whom the names of Luigi Amoroso and\ud Giulio La Volpe stand out. The most ambitious project undertaken by\ud the Paretians was to make dynamic the theory of general equilibrium\ud by grounding it in the use of then sophisticated mathematical instruments,\ud such as functionals, differential equations, and the calculus of variations\ud drawn by analogy from mechanics. Amoroso, utilizing his scientifi c background\ud to emphasize analogies with the physical sciences, in particular\ud with rational mechanics, proposed a view of economic dynamics based\ud on the past; La Volpe took a totally different tack by concentrating on\ud choices based on plans and predictions, that is, on the future. The Paretian\ud approach to dynamics was one of the most original products of the Italian\ud tradition between the two world wars, at least in the fi eld of pure theorizing;\ud but, for reasons that we will explore, it did not have a signifi cant impact\ud on the working out of economic dynamics in the postwar period

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Bruno de Finetti (1906–1985) is well known as the founder of the subjective theory of probability. Less known is his contribution to economic theory. The article presents the contributions of de Finetti in the field of welfare economics. He advanced a new mathematical tool: the theory of simultaneous maxima. On this base, he criticized the laissez-faire interpretation of the Paretian theory and advanced the idea of a social welfare function, reflecting the debate on the economic planning among Italian corporatist economists.

In this article, we focus on the figure of Eraldo Fossati, He was a protagonist of the development of Italian economic thought in the central decades of the last century. At the beginning he tried to dynamize the Paretian theory of general equilibrium. In the first phase he emphasized the role of true uncertainty following the Austrian tradition. Ended a short corporatist parenthesis, after the second world war he supported the Keynesian theory and made an original proposal to reconcile Pareto and Keynes, considering the latter not as a revolutionary economist but rather as an innovator who furnished new tools to understanding the real workings of contemporary economic systems with their chronic unemployment. In fact, after the Second World War Fossati was one of the main exponents of the Keynesian turn in Italy.