1,721,029 research outputs found
Review of Daniel Hausman, "Preference, value, choice, and welfare", Cambridge University Press, 2012
No full textWere Jevons, Menger and Walras really cardinalists? On the notion of measurement in utility theory, psychology, mathematics and other disciplines, 1870–1910
No full textThis article argues that the canonical dichotomy between cardinal utility and ordinal utility is inadequate to tell an accurate history of utility theory, and that a third form of utility consistent with the so-called classical understanding of measurement should be added to the traditional picture. According to the classical view, measuring an object consists of assessing the numerical ratio between the object and some other object taken as a unit. In particular, we show that Jevons, Menger, and Walras understood measurement in the classical sense and applied this understanding to utility measurement; therefore, they were not cardinalists in the current sense of the term, which is associated with the ranking of utility differences. We also analyze the argumentative strategies adopted by Jevons and Walras to address the conflict between the scientific importance they attributed to measurement, their classical understanding of it, and the apparent immeasurability of the utility featuring in their economic theories. Finally, in order to appreciate the broad intellectual context within which their discussions on utility measurement took place, this article reviews the understanding of measurement in disciplines that bear some relation to utility theory. The review illustrates that in the years 1870–1910, the period in which Jevons, Menger, and Walras were active, the classical understanding of measurement dominated not only utility theory but also all other disciplines surveyed. This circumstance helps to explain why the three marginalists remained committed to the classical understanding even though it did not square with their economic practices
Twentieth-century Italian economic thought through the lens of the Giornale degli Economisti
No full textW.E. Johnson’s 1913 paper and the question of his knowledge of Pareto
No full textIn 1913, the Cambridge logician W.E. Johnson published a famous article on demand theory in the Economic Journal. Although Johnson’s treatment of the subject strongly resembles the analysis set forth by Pareto in the Manual of Political Economy, Johnson does not cite the Italian economist. This has aroused a long-standing debate about Johnson’s actual acquaintance with Pareto’s works, but the debated point has never been thoroughly investigated. The present paper addresses the question of Johnson’s knowledge of Pareto both from an analytical and historical viewpoint, by examining Johnson’s life in the Cambridge environment and his available unpublished papers. Even though the new evidence gathered gives some weight to the thesis that Johnson could not have been unaware of Pareto’s Manual, it cannot exclude the possibility that the logician wrote his paper autonomously
More Light on Measuring Utility. A Response to Herfeld, Heilmann, and Lenfant
No full textThis article belongs to a review symposium on my book “Measuring Utility. From the Marginal Revolution to Behavioral Economics”, Oxford University Press, 2018, and contains my response to the three reviewers, namely Catherine Herfeld, Conrad Heilmann, and Jean-Sébastien Lenfant
War, Peace, and the Birth of Game Theory. A Review of R. Leonard, Von Neumann, Morgenstern, and the Creation of Game Theory, Cambridge UP, 2010
No full textHow economists came to accept expected utility theory: The case of Samuelson and Savage
No full textBased on the correspondence between Paul Samuelson, Leonard Jimmie Savage, Milton Friedman and Jacob Marschak between May and September 1950, the article reconstructs the joint intellectual journey that led Samuelson to accept expected utility theory and Savage to revise his initial motivations for supporting it
Review of The Foundations of Positive and Normative Economics: A Handbook, ed. Andrew Caplin and Andrew Schotter. Oxford University Press, 2008, xxii + 382 pages.
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