“Our daily bread”: Maurice Potron, from Catholicism to mathematical economics

Christian Bidard, Guido Erreygers and Wilfried Parys

Working Papers from University of Antwerp, Faculty of Business and Economics

Abstract: Maurice Potron (1872-1942) is a French Jesuit and mathematician whose main source of inspiration in economics is the encyclical Rerum Novarum. With virtually no knowledge in economic theory, he wrote down a linear model of production in which he formalized the notions of just prices and just wages. As early as 1911, he used the Perron-Frobenius theorem to prove the existence of a positive solution and established a duality result between the quantity side and the price side of the model. He returned to economics in the 1930s, but in both periods he failed to make a lasting impression upon economists.

Keywords: Potron; Just prices; Just wages; Catholic doctrine; Perron-Frobenius; Hawkins-Simon; Duality; Linear model of production; Social question (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44 pages
Date: 2007-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe
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https://repository.uantwerpen.be/docman/irua/3334a7/935f376b.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: 'Our daily bread': Maurice Potron, from Catholicism to mathematical economics (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ant:wpaper:2007007

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