Abstract
The marginal revolution of the 1870s had only one thing in common for the three economists with whom that revolution was associated (see Chapter 17 above). This was the development of a theory of value based on marginal utility. The essence of that revolution was the introduction of marginal analysis, particularly useful for the solution of resource allocation problems and used as well in the development of relative price theory, including that of factor prices. It was the marginal aspect which became important, not the utility aspect.
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Notes for further reading
George Stigler, ‘The development of utility theory’, reprinted in his Essays in the History of Economics (Chicago University Press, Chicago, 1965)
Luigino Bruno, Vilfredo Pareto and the Birth of Micro-economics (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2002) esp. chapter 1
Michael McLure, Pareto, Economics and Society (London: Routledge, 2001)
A. Kirman’s chapter on Pareto in Italian Economists of the Twentieth Century, edited by F. Meacci (Edward Elgar, Aldershot, 1998, ch. 2).
Robbins, a reading of his The Nature and Significance of Economic Science (Macmillan — now Palgrave Macmillan, London, 1934, esp. chs 1, 2 and 6)
Claudio Napoleoni, Economic Thought in the Twentieth Century (Martin Robertson, London, 1972, ch. 2).
American Economic Association Readings in Welfare Economics (Allen and Unwin, London, 1969)
M.W. Reder, Studies in the Theory of Welfare Economics (Columbia University Press, New York, 1947)
I.M.D. Little, A Critique of Welfare Economics (Oxford University Press, Oxford, first edition 1950, second edition, 1957)
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© 2003 Gianni Vaggi and Peter Groenewegen
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Vaggi, G., Groenewegen, P. (2003). Vilfredo Pareto, 1848–1923 and Lionel Robbins, 1898–1984: Critique and Decline of Utility theory. In: A Concise History of Economic Thought. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230505803_30
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230505803_30
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