W.E. Johnson’s 1913 Paper and the Question of His Knowledge of Pareto

Ivan Moscati (ivan.moscati@uninsubria.it)

Method and Hist of Econ Thought from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: In 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 knowledgeof 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from an analytical and historical viewpoint, by examining Johnson’s life in the Cambridge environment and his available unpublished papers.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.

Keywords: Johnson; Pareto; Cambridge School; Consumer Theory; Complementarity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B13 B21 B31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-06-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-hpe and nep-pol
Note: Type of Document - pdf
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/mhet/papers/0506/0506004.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: W. E. Johnson's 1913 Paper and the Question of his Knowledge of Pareto (2005)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwpmh:0506004

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Method and Hist of Econ Thought from University Library of Munich, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by EconWPA (volker.schallehn@ub.uni-muenchen.de this e-mail address is bad, please contact repec@repec.org).