IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cwl/cwldpp/2206.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Irving Fisher, Ragnar Frisch and the Elusive Quest for Measurable Utility

Author

Listed:
  • Robert W. Dimand

    (Department of Economics, Brock University)

Abstract

Commitment to the behaviorist approach to utility theory, to the usefulness of mathematics in economic analysis and to equalization of the marginal utility of income as a principle of just taxation brought Irving Fisher and Ragnar Frisch to attempt to measure the marginal utility of income, and led them to collaborate in forming the Econometric Society and sponsoring the establishment of the Cowles Commission, institutions advancing economic theory in connection to mathematics and statistics. To be presented at a symposium at the University of Oslo, December 3, 2019, honoring the 50th anniversary of the award to Ragnar Frisch of the Royal Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Science in Memory of Alfred Nobel and the 30th anniversary of the award of that prize to Trygve Haavelmo.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert W. Dimand, 2019. "Irving Fisher, Ragnar Frisch and the Elusive Quest for Measurable Utility," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2206, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2206
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d22/d2206.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dupont-Kieffer, Ariane, 2013. "Mesure de l’utilité marginale et indice de prix chez Ragnar Frisch Le difficile mariage de la théorie économique et des instruments statistiques," OEconomia, Editions NecPlus, vol. 2013(01), pages 23-57, March.
    2. David Colander, 2007. "Edgeworth's Hedonimeter and the Quest to Measure Utility," Middlebury College Working Paper Series 0723, Middlebury College, Department of Economics.
    3. Stephen Brown & William Goetzmann & Alok Kumar, 1998. "The Dow Theory: William Peter Hamilton's Track Record Re-Considered," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm85, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Apr 2008.
    4. Robert Dimand & Robert Koehn, 2002. "From edgeworth to fisher to vickrey: A comment on Michael J. Boskin's Vickrey lecture," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 30(2), pages 205-208, June.
    5. Olav Bjerkholt (ed.), 1995. "Foundations of Modern Econometrics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, volume 0, number 46.
    6. Fisher, Irving, 1918. "Is "Utility" the Most Suitable Term for the Concept It is Used to Denote?," History of Economic Thought Articles, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, vol. 8, pages 335-337.
    7. Herbert E. Scarf, 1967. "On the Computation of Equilibrium Prices," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 232, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    8. David Colander, 2007. "Retrospectives: Edgeworth's Hedonimeter and the Quest to Measure Utility," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 215-226, Spring.
    9. Bjerkholt, Olav, 2017. "On The Founding Of The Econometric Society," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(2), pages 175-198, June.
    10. Vilfredo Pareto, 2008. "Summary of Some Chapters of a New Treatise on Pure Economics by Professor Pareto," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 67(3), pages 453-504, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ingebjørg Kristoffersen, 2010. "The Metrics of Subjective Wellbeing: Cardinality, Neutrality and Additivity," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 86(272), pages 98-123, March.
    2. Yew‐Kwang Ng, 2008. "Happiness Studies: Ways to Improve Comparability and Some Public Policy Implications," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 84(265), pages 253-266, June.
    3. Bichler, Shimshon & Nitzan, Jonathan, 2021. "The 1-2-3 Toolbox of Mainstream Economics: Promising Everything, Delivering Nothing," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue 98, pages 23-48.
    4. Hamid Hasan, 2019. "Confidence in Subjective Evaluation of Human Well-Being in Sen’s Capabilities Perspective," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 1-17, January.
    5. Erik W Matson, 2024. "The new paternalism does not replace older wisdom," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 386-393, June.
    6. Chris Hand, 2018. "Do the arts make you happy? A quantile regression approach," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 42(2), pages 271-286, May.
    7. Turan Arslan, 2017. "A Weighted Euclidean Distance based TOPSIS Method for Modeling Public Subjective Judgments," Asia-Pacific Journal of Operational Research (APJOR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 34(03), pages 1-18, June.
    8. David Colander, 2018. "The Scope and Method of Applied Policy Economics," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 63(2), pages 132-146, October.
    9. Senderski, Marcin, 2014. "Ecumenical foundations? On the coexistence of Austrian and neoclassical views on utility," MPRA Paper 67024, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Axel v. Werder, 2011. "Corporate Governance and Stakeholder Opportunism," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(5), pages 1345-1358, October.
    11. Loureiro, Maria L. & Alló, Maria & Coello, Pablo, 2022. "Hot in Twitter: Assessing the emotional impacts of wildfires with sentiment analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    12. Leonhard K. Lades & Liam Delaney, 2024. "Self-control failures, as judged by themselves," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-14, December.
    13. Pereira, Robert, 1999. "Forecasting Ability But No Profitability: An Empirical Evaluation of Genetic Algorithm-optimised Technical Trading Rules," MPRA Paper 9055, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Yoonkyo Cho & Taehwan Kim & Jaewhak Roh, 2021. "An analysis of the effects of electronic commerce on the Korean economy using the CGE model," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 831-854, September.
    15. Ralph I. Williams & Torsten M. Pieper & Franz W. Kellermanns & Joseph H. Astrachan, 2019. "Family business goal formation: a literature review and discussion of alternative algorithms," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 69(3), pages 329-349, September.
    16. Gerard Ballot & Antoine Mandel & Annick Vignes, 2015. "Agent-based modeling and economic theory: where do we stand?," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 10(2), pages 199-220, October.
    17. Buda, Rodolphe, 1999. "Market Exchange Modelling Experiment, Simulation Algorithms, and Theoretical Analysis," MPRA Paper 4196, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2000.
    18. Henk Folmer & Olof Johansson-Stenman, 2011. "Does Environmental Economics Produce Aeroplanes Without Engines? On the Need for an Environmental Social Science," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 48(3), pages 337-361, March.
    19. Benjamin Lev, 1998. "Book Reviews," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 28(1), pages 113-118, February.
    20. K. J. Hong & S. Satchell, 2015. "Time series momentum trading strategy and autocorrelation amplification," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(9), pages 1471-1487, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Irving Fisher; Ragnar Frisch; Measurable utility; Axiomatic approach to utility;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B1 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925
    • B23 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Econometrics; Quantitative and Mathematical Studies
    • B31 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought: Individuals - - - Individuals

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2206. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Brittany Ladd (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cowleus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.