Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-vsgnj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-19T19:29:04.788Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Pareto and the Wicksell–Cobb–Douglas Functional Form

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2009

Christian E. Weber
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is understood that Charles Cobb and Paul Douglas (1928) were not the first to use the production function named after them. Joseph Schumpeter (1954, p. 1042), Carl-Axel Olsson (1971), and Henry Spiegel (1991, p. 816) all note that the production function Y = AKαL1-α had been used by Knut Wicksell (1901, 1906) more than twenty years before Cobb and Douglas published their study. While it is quite possible that Wicksell was the first to use the Cobb-Douglas functional form to study production, he was not the first to apply it to economic analysis in general. Vilfredo Pareto had worked out several implications of a specific version of the Cobb-Douglas utility function as early as 1892. Later, he repeated and extended this analysis in the mathematical appendix to the French translation of his Manual of Political Economy (1909).

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , June 1998 , pp. 203 - 210
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Allen, R. G. D. 1938. Mathematical Analysis for Economists, St. Martin's Press, New York.Google Scholar
Berry, Arthur. 1891. “Alcune brevi parole sulla teoria del trattato di A. Marshall,” Giornale degli Economisti, 2, 549–53.Google Scholar
Cobb, Charles and Paul, Douglas, 1928. “A Theory of Production,” American Economic Review, 18, March, 139–65.Google Scholar
Dooley, Peter. 1983a. “Slutsky's Equation is Pareto's Solution,” History of Political Economy, 15, Winter, 513–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dooley, Peter. 1983b. “Consumer's Surplus: Marshall and His Critics,” Canadian Journal of Economics, 16, February, 26–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, Paul H. 1976. “The Cobb–Douglas Production Function Once Again: Its History, Its Testing, and Some Empirical Values,” Journal of Political Economy, 84, October, 903–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edgeworth, Francis Y. 1891. “Osservazioni sulla teoria matematica dell'economia politica con riguardo speciale al principi di economia di Alfredo Marshall,” Giornale degli Economisti, 2, 233–45.Google Scholar
Geary, R. C. 1949–1950. “A Note on a Constant Utility Index of the Cost of Living,” Review of Economic Studies, 18, 65–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klèin, L. and Rubin, H.. 1947–1948. “A Constant Utility Index of the Cost of Living,” Review of Economic Studies, 15, 84–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, Alfred. 1890. Principles of Economics, Macmillan, London.Google Scholar
Olsson, Carl-Axel. 1971. “The Cobb–Douglas or the Wicksell Function?,” Economy and History, 14, 64–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pareto, Vilfredo. 1892a. “Considerazioni sui Principii Fondamentali dell'Economia Politica Pura,” Part II, Giornale degli Economisti, 4, June, 485–512.Google Scholar
Pareto, Vilfredo. 1892b. “Considerazioni sui Principii Fondamentali dell'Economia Politica Pura,” Part III, Giornale degli Economisti, 5, August, 119–57.Google Scholar
Pareto, Vilfredo. 1893. “Considerazioni sui Principii Fondamentali dell'Economia Politica Pura,” Part V, Giornale degli Economisti, 7, October, 279–321.Google Scholar
Pareto, Vilfredo. 1900a. “Sunto di alcuni capitoli di un nuovo trattato di economia pura,” Part I, Giornale degli Economisti, 20, March, 216–35.Google Scholar
Pareto, Vilfredo. 1900b. “Sunto di alcuni capitoli di un nuovo trattato di economia pura,” Part II, Giornale degli Economisti, 20, June, 511–49.Google Scholar
Pareto, Vilfredo. 1909. Manual of Political Economy, translated by A. S. Schwier, Augustus M. Kelley, New York, 1971.Google Scholar
Samuelson, Paul A. 1942. “Constancy of the Marginal Utility of Income,” in Lange, O., ed., Studies in Mathematical Economics and Econometrics in Memory of Henry Schultz. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1942.Google Scholar
Samuelson, Paul A. 1947–1948. “Some Implications of ‘Linearity,’” Review of Economic Studies, 15,88–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1954. History of Economic Analysis, Oxford University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Slutsky, E. E. 1915. “On the Theory of the Budget of the Consumer,” Giornale degli Economisti, 51, 1–26; reprinted in Stigler, G. J. and Boulding, K. E., eds., A.E.A. Readings in Price Theory, Richard D. Irwin, Chicago, 1952.Google Scholar
Spiegel, Henry W. 1991. The Growth of Economic Thought, 3d ed., Duke University Press, Durham.Google Scholar
Stigler, George J. 1950. “The Development of Utility Theory,” Journal of Political Economy, 58, August, 307–27 and October, 373–96; reprinted in Stigler, G. J., ed., Essays in the History of Economics, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1965.Google Scholar
Stone, Richard, 1954. “Linear Expenditure Systems and Demand Analysis: An Application to the Pattern of British Demand,” Economic Journal, 64, 511–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Varian, Hal R. 1992. Microeconomic Analysis, W. W. Norton, New York.Google Scholar
Weber, Christian E. 1997a. “More on Slutsky's Equation as Pareto's Solution,” History of Political Economy, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Weber, Christian E. 1997b. “Pareto and the 43 Percent Ordinal Theory of Utility,” unpublished working paper, Seattle University.Google Scholar
Wicksell, Knut. 1901, 1906. Förenläsningar i nationalekonmi, translated by Classen, E., as Lectures on Political Economy, edited by Robbins, L., Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1934–1935.Google Scholar