Secret Origins of Modern Microeconomics : Dupuit and the Engineers

Rating:
Summary: A must for Transportation Economists and Econo-Engineers
Review: Ekelund and Hebert have provided an important work not only on the origins of micro-economics, but also the history of transportation economics and the relationship between engineers and economists. Although this text is not an easy read by any means, it provides an essential foundation of transportation economic theory. It also explains how and why micro-economics diverged from classical economics and became a science based in rigorous mathmatical examination of human behavior. As a civil engineer that teaches and studies transportation economics, I find this to be essential reading for transportation economists and policy types. The studies and conclusions of the early econo-engineers on the subject of transportation economics and regulation are as relevant today as they were in 19th century France.

Rating:
Summary: A must for Transportation Economists and Econo-Engineers
Review: Ekelund and Hebert have provided an important work not only on the origins of micro-economics, but also the history of transportation economics and the relationship between engineers and economists. Although this text is not an easy read by any means, it provides an essential foundation of transportation economic theory. It also explains how and why micro-economics diverged from classical economics and became a science based in rigorous mathmatical examination of human behavior. As a civil engineer that teaches and studies transportation economics, I find this to be essential reading for transportation economists and policy types. The studies and conclusions of the early econo-engineers on the subject of transportation economics and regulation are as relevant today as they were in 19th century France.

Rating:
Summary: An important book on the origins of modern microeconomics
Review: This is a beauty of a book! Erudite, well-researched, with a detailed knowledge of the primary sources, original, and high on economic analysis. This is not a book for the faint-hearted. It requires a good knowledge of economic theory and an interest in the History of Ideas. It also gives a first rate account of the history of the period and the history of institutions in pre- and post-revolutionary France that have created this strange beast: the French engineer whose skills made him attack from a formal and theoretical viewpoint practical problems. It certainly puts modern neoclassical microeconomics in a historical perspective. Sir John Hicks' apt remark that the common thread between Walras and Marshall is that they both read Cournot, is put into new light in this book that focuses on Cournot's less famous contemporary, Arsene Jules Etienne Juvenal Dupuit. Although the origins are less secret than the title implies, this important book brings them to life and shows how many of the problems that we consider modern are more than a 150 years old and indeed predate in their analytical treatment, the 1870s where most courses on the History of Economic Ideas put the origins of modern neoclassical theory. A must for anyone with a serious interest in the subject!

Rating:
Summary: An important book on the origins of modern microeconomics
Review: This is a beauty of a book! Erudite, well-researched, with a detailed knowledge of the primary sources, original, and high on economic analysis. This is not a book for the faint-hearted. It requires a good knowledge of economic theory and an interest in the History of Ideas. It also gives a first rate account of the history of the period and the history of institutions in pre- and post-revolutionary France that have created this strange beast: the French engineer whose skills made him attack from a formal and theoretical viewpoint practical problems. It certainly puts modern neoclassical microeconomics in a historical perspective. Sir John Hicks' apt remark that the common thread between Walras and Marshall is that they both read Cournot, is put into new light in this book that focuses on Cournot's less famous contemporary, Arsene Jules Etienne Juvenal Dupuit. Although the origins are less secret than the title implies, this important book brings them to life and shows how many of the problems that we consider modern are more than a 150 years old and indeed predate in their analytical treatment, the 1870s where most courses on the History of Economic Ideas put the origins of modern neoclassical theory. A must for anyone with a serious interest in the subject!