Abstract
There are interesting parallels in the careers of Frank Ramsey and John von Neumann. Each was born in 1903, one the product of the ‘High Intelligentsia of England’ (Keynes, 1933, p. vii) and the other the son of a wealthy banker in Budapest (Ulam, 1976, p. 79). Each was a creative mathematician of high order but each also made major contributions to at least two other disciplines. Each wrote just three papers in economic theory, all six of which were of fundamental importance. Moreover, with one exception every one of these seminal papers had to wait many years for its proper recognition; even the exception — the utility theory set out in the Appendix to von Neumann and Morgenstern (1947) — at first encountered serious misunderstanding within the profession. Indeed, considering them purely as economists, one wonders how these two geniuses would fare today, when promotion and tenure so often depend on a good immediate showing in citation indexes and the like.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Selected Works
1926. Truth and probability. Chapter VII, pages 156–98 in (1931). Reprinted in (1978) and in Kyburg and Smokier (1964), 61–92.
1927. A contribution to the theory of taxation. Economic Journal 37, 47–61. Reprinted in (1978).
1928. A mathematical theory of saving. Economic Journal 38, 543–9. Reprinted in (1978).
1931. The Foundations of Mathematics. Edited by R.B. Braithwaite, with a Preface by G.E. Moore, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; New York: Humanities Press, 1950.
1978. Foundations. Edited by D.H. Mellor, with Introductions by the editor, L. Mirsky, T.J. Smiley and J.R.N. Stone, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; New York: Humanities Press.
Bibliography
Anscombe, F.J. and Aumann, R.J. 1963. A definition of subjective probability. Annals of Mathematical Statistics 34, 199–205.
Arrow, K.J. 1951. Alternative approaches to the theory of choice in risk–taking situations. Econometrica 19, 404–37.
Arrow, K.J. 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Risk–Bearing. Helsinki: Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation.
Arrow, K.J. 1971. Essays in the Theory of Risk-Bearing. Chicago: Markham.
Bayes, T. 1763. An essay towards solving a problem in the doctrine of chances. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 53, 370–418. Reprinted in Biometrika 45, (1958), 293–315.
Bernoulli, D. 1738. Specimen theoriae novae de mensura sortis. Commentarii Academiae Scientiarum Imperialis Petropolitanae, Vol. V, 175–92.
Translated as ‘Exposition of a new theory on the measurement of risk’, Econometrica 22, 1954, 23–36.
Borel, E. 1924. A propos d’un traité de probabilité. Revue Philosophique 98, 321–36. Translated in Kyburg and Smokier (1964), 45–60.
Cohen, P.J. 1966. Set Theory and the Continuum Hypothesis. New York: W.A. Benjamin.
Davidson, D. and Suppes, P. 1956. A finitistic axiomatization of subjective probability and utility. Econometrica 24, 264–75.
de Finetti, B. 1937. La prévision, ses lois logiques, ses sources subjectives. Annales de rInstitut Henri Poincaré 7, 1–68. Translated in Kyburg and Smokier (1964), 93–158.
Graham, R.L., Rothschild, B.L. and Spencer, J.H. 1980. Ramsey Theory. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Harrod, R.F. 1951. The Life of John Maynard Keynes. London: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1963.
Jeffrey, R.L. 1965. The Logic of Decision. New York: McGraw–Hill. 2nd edn, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.
Jeffreys, H. 1961. Theory of Probability. 3rd edn, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Keynes, J. M. 1921. A Treatise on Probability. London: Macmillan; New York: Harper & Row, 1962.
Keynes, J.M. 1933. Essays in Biography. London: Macmillan.
Reprinted as Vol. X of The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1972.
Kyburg, H.E. and Smokier, H.E. (eds) 1964. Studies in Subjective Probability. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Little, I.M.D. 1950. A Critique of Welfare Economics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Luce, R.D. and Suppes, P. 1965. Preference, utility, and subjective probability. In Handbook of Mathematical Psychology, Vol. Ill, ed. R.D. Luce, R.R. Bush and E. Galanter, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 249–410.
Partridge, F. 1981. Memories. London: Victor Gollancz.
Pigou, A.C. 1928. A Study in Public Finance. London: Macmillan.
Savage, L.J. 1954. The Foundations of Statistics. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Savage, L.J. et al. 1962. The Foundations of Statistical Inference: A discussion. London: Methuen; New York: J. Wiley, 1962.
Sraffa, P. 1960. Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thrall, R.M., Coombs, C.H. and Davis, R.L. (eds) 1954. Decision Processes. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Ulam, S.M. 1976. Adventures of a Mathematician. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Vickers, J. M. 1962. A critical investigation of Frank Ramsey’s Theory of Value and Belief. PhD dissertation in the Department of Philosophy, Stanford University,
von Neumann, J. 1928. Zur Theorie der Gesellschaftspiele. Mathematische Annalen 100, 295–320.
von Neumann, J. 1937. Über ein ökonomisches Gleichungssystem und eine Verallgemeinerung des Brouwerschen Fixpunksatzes. Ergebnisse eines mathematischen Kolloquiums 8, 78–83.
Translated as ‘A model of general economic equilibrium’, Review of Economic Studies 13, 1945–6, 1–9.
von Neumann, J. and Morgenstern, O. 1944. Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
von Neumann, J. and Morgenstern, O. 1947. 2nd edn of (1944).
Wittgenstein, L. 1922. Tractatus Logico–Philosophicus, with an Introduction by Bertrand Russell. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co; New York: Humanities Press, 1951.
Wittgenstein, L. 1953. Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G.E. Anscombe, Oxford: Basil Blackwell; New York: Macmillan.
Wittgenstein, L. 1973. Letters to C.K. Ogden. Edited by G.H. von Wright, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Wright, G.H. von. 1982. Wittgenstein. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 1990 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Newman, P. (1990). Frank Plumpton Ramsey. In: Eatwell, J., Milgate, M., Newman, P. (eds) Utility and Probability. The New Palgrave. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20568-4_27
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20568-4_27
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-49541-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-20568-4
eBook Packages: Palgrave Economics & Finance CollectionEconomics and Finance (R0)