Who's who and what's what in the history of rational choice theory, broadly
defined
Many of these links are from the excellent History
of Economic Thought site at the New School for Social Research, Johns
Hopkins University. Some others are from the History
of Mathematics Archive at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.
This list emphasizes historical figures and pioneers of the modern era,
plus a few more recent contributors for whom informative web pages exist.
Suggestions for other links are welcome.
Early probability theory:
Blaise
PASCAL (1623-1662)
Daniel
BERNOULLI (1700-1782) see
also...
Thomas
BAYES (1702-1761)
Pierre-Simon
LAPLACE (1749-1827)
Utilitarianism:
Jeremy
BENTHAM (1748-1832)
Marginalist economics and utility theory under certainty:
William
Stanley JEVONS (1835-1882)
Carl MENGER
(1841-1921)
Marie-Ésprit
Léon WALRAS (1834-1910)
Francis Ysidro
EDGEWORTH (1845-1926)
Vilfredo
PARETO (1848-1923)
Ragnar A.K.
FRISCH (1895-1973)
Subjective probability and expected utility theory:
Frank H.
KNIGHT (1885-1972)
Frank
Plumpton RAMSEY (1903-1930)
Bruno
de FINETTI (1906-1985)
John von
NEUMANN (1903-1957) see
also...
Leonard
J. SAVAGE (1917-1971)
Maurice
ALLAIS (1911-)
Robert J.
AUMANN (1930-) see
also...
Peter FISHBURN
(topical bibliography, postcript file)
General equilibrium theory:
Kenneth J.
ARROW (1921-)
Gérard
DEBREU (1921-)
Jacques H.
DRÈZE (1929-)
Game theory:
Antoine
Augustin COURNOT (1801-1877)
John von
NEUMANN (1903-1957) see
also...
John F. NASH
(1928-)
Lloyd S.
SHAPLEY (1923-)
Martin J.
SHUBIK (1926-)
Robert J.
AUMANN (1930-)
John C.
HARSANYI (1920-)
Reinhard
SELTEN (1930-)
David M.
KREPS (1950-)
Social choice and welfare:
Marie
Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de CONDORCET (1743-1794)
Abram BERGSON
(1914-)
Paul
A. SAMUELSON (1915-)
Kenneth J.
ARROW (1921-)
Amartya K.
SEN (1933-)
Human capital theory:
Gary S.
BECKER (1930-)
Behavioral and experimental economics:
Herbert SIMON
(1916-)
Amos TVERSKY (1937-1996)
Political theory:
The Jon
ELSTER page
Schools of thought
(History of Economic Thought website):
Neo-Walrasian
general equilibrium theory
Uncertainty,
information, and games
Theory of uncertainty
and information (another good who's-who list)
Game Theory
Finance
Theory
New Institutional
Economics
The Austrian
School
More game theory links:
Al Roth's
page -- market design, game theory, experimental economics...
Learning
and evolution in games (essay by Fudenberg & Levine)
A history of
game theory (by Paul Walker, University of Canterbury NZ)
Interactive prisoner's
dilemma game (play against "Serendip")
Download GAMBIT (program for finding Nash equilibria of games)
Peter Wakker's home page with link to his annotated references on decisions and uncertainty (2.8M Word file)
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