The Passage of Time: Shackle, Shell and Scenarios

Michael Jefferson

Chapter 10 in G.L.S. Shackle, 2014, pp 198-214 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Over 30 years ago an exchange of correspondence reflected a fruitful exchange of ideas, mutual compliments on their complementarity, and an ongoing influence in the minds and written work of others. The first letter is dated 3 April 1981, and sent from Aldeburgh, Suffolk: Dear Mr. Jefferson, I have been exceedingly interested to see your name in Professor Wiseman’s programme for Section F of the British Association (for the Advancement of Science) meeting in September. In the autumn of 1979 I was extremely excited to read the lecture by Mr. Richard Seidl to the conference on Corporate Finance, in which he had explained Shell’s disavowal of the attempt to predict, as an unique path of history, the course of affairs for coming years, and Shell’s adoption of a new philosophy, calling for multiple scenarios differing widely from each other, and insisting on special attention to extreme members. This sheaf of diverse scenarios seeks to answer the question, not what will happen but what could, or can happen. Since this is the attitude to our irremediable unknowledge of the future which I have been urging for very many years, you will understand why I feel a special thrill in seeing it put into action by the most massively successful company in Britain.

Keywords: Subjective Probability; British Association; Voluntary Simplicity; Fruitful Exchange; Economic Doctrine (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
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:pal:gtechp:978-1-137-28186-9_10

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781137281869

DOI: 10.1057/9781137281869_10

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Great Thinkers in Economics from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().