Diamonds Are Forever(?): Nassau Senior and Utility Theory

Michael White

The Manchester School of Economic & Social Studies, 1992, vol. 60, issue 1, 64-78

Abstract: Nassau Senior's Outline of the Science of Political Economy (1836) has often been represented as containing a statement of the law of diminishing marginal utility. Yet Senior has also been criticized for failing to present a marginalist analysis of demand and price formation. This paper shows, however, that the Outline contains a nonmarginalist analytical framework and that depicting Senior as a marginalist precursor depends on an arbitrary reading of his work. The result is a teleological history of economics that cannot register the possibility of different explanations of consumption demand in the nineteenth century. Copyright 1992 by Blackwell Publishers Ltd and The Victoria University of Manchester

Date: 1992
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:manch2:v:60:y:1992:i:1:p:64-78

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