Zeuthen, Frederik Ludvig Bang (1888–1959)

Abstract

Zeuthen was born on 9 September 1888 in Copenhagen. He took a degree in economics at the University of Copenhagen in 1912 and spent the next 18 years in the service of the Danish social security system. That system, already then fullfledged by American standards, was the subject matter of a large number of books and articles published by Zeuthen in the period 1912–28. But then, at 40, Zeuthen published his Fordeling (1928) in which is found, among other things, his use of inequalities in a Walras system as well as his theory of collective bargaining. The following year he published his article (1929) on product differentiation under monopolistic competition. Zeuthen’s treatment of collective bargaining and monopolistic competition appeared in English (1930) with a preface by Schumpeter, who called it a ‘bold raid into new and difficult country’. The new country would soon become part of mainstream economic theory. Also in English (1957), Zeuthen gave us his mature views on all this. He taught theory, labour economics and social security at his alma mater from 1930 to 1958 and died on 24 February 1959 in Copenhagen.

This chapter was originally published in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd edition, 2008. Edited by Steven N. Durlauf and Lawrence E. Blume