50 Years Ago: Duncan Ironmonger’s New Commodities and Consumer Behaviour and Its Relationship with Lancaster’s ‘New Approach’ to Consumer Behaviour

Peter Earl, Brendan Markey-Towler and Ken Coutts

History of Economics Review, 2022, vol. 83, issue 1, 40-67

Abstract: This paper explores the origins, contributions, limitations, and impact of Duncan Ironmonger’s book New Commodities and Consumer Behaviour (published in 1972), and its similarities with, and differences from, Kelvin Lancaster’s ‘new approach’ to consumer behaviour. It does this with the aid of material from an interview given by Ironmonger to one of the authors in 2015, reviews of his book, its citation details, and a re-reading of the book in light of the interview. It argues that there are substantial differences between the analyses offered by Ironmonger and Lancaster and that, despite them both offering models of choice focused on product attributes, their methods were profoundly different. The paper concludes by considering lessons of their different publication strategies, and their different impacts, for early-career researchers.

Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1080/10370196.2022.2106704

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