Abstract
After many independent discoveries that were widely separated in time and space, the indirect utility function has in the last 35 years gradually become a standard part of demand theory. Its first discovery was made as early as 1886 by Antonelli in Italy, who also derived what has come to be known as Roy’s Identity (see Chipman’s introduction to the translation of Antonelli (1886) in Chipman et al. 1971). Later contributions came from Konyus (1924, 1926) and Byushgens in Russia, from Hotelling (1932) and Court (1941, pp. 284–97) in the United States, from Roy (1942, 1947) and Ville (1946) in France, and from Wold (1943–4) and Malmquist (1953) in Sweden; a good brief history may be found in Diewert (1982, pp. 547–50).
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Antonelli, G.B. 1886. Sulla teoria matematica della economia politica. Pisa: Tipografia del Folchetto.
Chipman, J.S., L. Hurwicz, M.K. Richter, and H.F. Sonnenschein, eds. 1971. Preferences, utility and demand. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.
Court, L.M. 1941. Entrepreneurial and consumer demand theories for commodity spectra. Econometrica 9 (135–62): 241–297.
Diewert, W.E. 1982. Duality approaches to microeconomic theory. In Handbook of mathematical economics, ed. K.J. Arrow and M.D. Intriligator, vol. II. Amsterdam: North-Holland. Ch. 12, 535–599.
Fenchel, W. 1953. Convex cones, sets and functions. New Jersey: Department of Mathematics, Princeton University, mimeo.
Hicks, J.R. 1939. Value and capital. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hotelling, H. 1932. Edgeworth’s taxation paradox and the nature of demand and supply functions. Journal of Political Economy 40: 577–616.
Houthakker, H.S. 1951. Compensated changes in quantities and qualities consumed. Review of Economic Studies 19: 155–164.
Houthakker, H.S. 1960. Additive preferences. Econometrica 28: 244–257.
Konyus, A.A. 1924. The problem of the true index of the cost of living. Economic Bulletin of the Institute of Economic Conjuncture 9–10: 64–71. Trans. in Econometrica 7, 1939, 10–29.
Konyus, A.A., and S.S. Byushgens. 1926. K probleme pokupatelnoi cili deneg. Voprosi Konyunkluri 2 (1): 151–172.
Malmquist, S. 1953. Index numbers and indifference surfaces. Trabajos de estadistica 4: 209–241.
Roy, R. 1942. De l’utilité: contribution à la théorie des choix. Paris: Hermann.
Roy, R. 1947. La distribution du revenu entre les divers biens. Econometrica 15: 205–225.
Samuelson, P.A. 1942. Constancy of the marginal utility of income. In Studies in mathematical economics and econometrics: In memory of Henry Schultz, ed. O. Lange, F. McIntyre, and T.O. Yntema, 75–91. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Shephard, R.W. 1953. Cost and production functions. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Varian, H.R. 1984. Microeconomic analysis. 2nd ed. New York: Norton.
Ville, J. 1946. Sur les conditions d’existence d’une ophelimité totale et d’un indice du niveau des prix. Annales de l’Université de Lyon 9: 32–39. Trans. in Review of Economic Studies 19, 1951, 123–128.
Wold, H.O.A. 1943–4. A synthesis of pure demand analysis. Skandinavisk Aktuarietidskrift 26: 85–144, 220–75; 27: 69–120.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2018 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Newman, P. (2018). Indirect Utility Function. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1245
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1245
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-95188-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-95189-5
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences