IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/van/wpaper/0018.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and the Filiation of Economic Ideas

Author

Listed:
  • Andrea Maneschi

    (Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University)

Abstract

This article examines the intellectual influences that economists exerted on Nicholas Georgescu Roegen in his formative and mature years. While these include Malthus, Marshall, Pareto and Schumpeter, attention is focused on Marx and Gossen. Karl Marx is the economist whom Georgescu Roegen cited most frequently in his three books. While criticizing several of Marx's views, he noted approvingly that Marx did not consider the economic process as an isolated or closed system. This contrasts with its representation by the neoclassical paradigm, which ignores the absorption of low-entropy resources from the environment and their transformation into high-entropy waste. Georgescu Roegen's 130-page essay on "Hermann Heinrich Gossen: His life and work in historical perspective" was his introduction to the first English-language translation of Gossen's The Laws of Human Relations and the Rules of Human Action Derived Therefrom. This allowed Georgescu Roegen to re-evaluate his own early work on consumer theory, and highlight the importance that Gossen attributed to the role of time in consumer welfare maximization. It also gave him the opportunity to remark on the fate of a genius like Gossen, who was totally ignored in his lifetime and later frequently misunderstood. Georgescu Roegen occupies a secure place in the filiation of economic ideas. His name is now closely associated with the fields of bioeconomics and ecological economics.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrea Maneschi, 2000. "Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and the Filiation of Economic Ideas," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0018, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:van:wpaper:0018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/pubs/VUECON/vu00-w18.pdf
    File Function: Revised version, 2000
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philip Arestis & Malcolm Sawyer, 1992. "A Biographical Dictionary of Dissenting Economists," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 20, March.
    2. Philip Mirowski, 1988. "Energy and Energetics in Economic Theory: A Review Essay," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(3), pages 811-830, September.
    3. George J. Stigler, 1950. "The Development of Utility Theory. I," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(4), pages 307-307.
    4. De Gleria, Silvana, 1995. "Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen: A Mind That Thought above His Time," Economia Internazionale / International Economics, Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato Agricoltura di Genova, vol. 48(3), pages 317-346.
    5. John Gowdy & Susan Mesner, 1998. "The Evolution of Georgescu-Roegen's Bioeconomics," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(2), pages 136-156.
    6. Foster, John, 1993. "Economics and the Self-Organisation Approach: Alfred Marshall Revisited," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(419), pages 975-991, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Valentin Cojanu, 2009. "Georgescu‐Roegen's entropic model: a methodological appraisal," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 36(3), pages 274-286, February.

    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. Couix, Quentin, 2020. "Georgescu-Roegen's Flow-Fund Theory of Production in Retrospect," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    2. Levallois, Clément, 2010. "Can de-growth be considered a policy option? A historical note on Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and the Club of Rome," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(11), pages 2271-2278, September.
    3. Claudia Kettner-Marx & Angela Köppl & Sigrid Stagl, 2014. "Towards an Operational Measurement of Socio-ecological Performance. WWWforEurope Working Paper No. 52," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 47154, August.
    4. Jackson, William A., 1995. "Population Growth: A Comparison of Evolutionary Views," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 22(6), pages 3-16.
    5. Marc Le Menestrel & Luk Van Wassenhove, 2001. "The Domain and Interpretation of Utility Functions: An Exploration," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 329-349, December.
    6. John Finch, 2000. "Is post-Marshallian economics an evolutionary research tradition?," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(3), pages 377-406.
    7. Jeroen van den Bergh & John Gowdy, 2000. "Evolutionary Theories in Environmental and Resource Economics: Approaches and Applications," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 17(1), pages 37-57, September.
    8. Martin Binder, 2009. "Some Considerations Regarding the Problem of Multidimensional Utility," Jena Economics Research Papers 2009-099, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    9. Ávalos, Eloy, 2013. "Sobre algunos supuestos de la teoría neoclásica [On some assumptions of neoclassical theory]," MPRA Paper 78669, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Nastari, Plinio Mario, 1981. "The effects of income redistribution on sectorial aggregate demand curves," ISU General Staff Papers 1981010108000018037, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    11. Gigante, Anna Azzurra, 2013. "Institutional Cognitive Economics: some recent developments," MPRA Paper 48278, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Jean-Sébastien Lenfant, 2021. "Eugen (Evgeny Evgenievich) Slutsky (1880-1948)," Working Papers hal-03628273, HAL.
    13. van Damme, Eric & Binmore, Kenneth G. & Roth, Alvin E. & Samuelson, Larry & Winter, Eyal & Bolton, Gary E. & Ockenfels, Axel & Dufwenberg, Martin & Kirchsteiger, Georg & Gneezy, Uri & Kocher, Martin G, 2014. "How Werner Güth's ultimatum game shaped our understanding of social behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 292-318.
    14. Albers, Scott & Albers, Andrew, 2015. "On the mathematic prediction of economic and social crises: toward a harmonic interpretation of the Kondratiev Wave, revised and corrected, with a new appendix, February 12, 2015," MPRA Paper 62118, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Luca Timponelli, 2021. "From Pareto to Bridgman: The Operational Turn of Samuelson, Sraffa and Leontief," Annals of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Economics, History and Political Science, Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, Torino (Italy), vol. 55(1), pages 303-328, June.
    16. Poinsot, Philippe, 2016. "Jules Dupuit And The Railroads: What Is The Role Of The State?," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(2), pages 189-209, June.
    17. Jozsef Sakovics & Daniel Friedman, 2011. "The marginal utility of money: A modern Marshallian approach to consumer choice," Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series 209, Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh.
    18. Christian Seidl, 2013. "The St. Petersburg Paradox at 300," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 247-264, June.
    19. Amaresh Das, 2011. "Teaching by infusing Topics: Money and Banking," Journal of Education and Vocational Research, AMH International, vol. 1(1), pages 13-20.
    20. Daniel Friedman & József Sákovics, 2015. "Tractable consumer choice," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 79(2), pages 333-358, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Filiation of economic ideas; Georgescu-Roegen; Marx; Schumpeter;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B25 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Austrian; Stockholm School
    • B31 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought: Individuals - - - Individuals

    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:van:wpaper:0018. 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: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/econ/wparchive/index.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.