Francis Ysidro Edgeworth (8 February 1845 – 13 February 1926) was an
Anglo-Irish
Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the establis ...
philosopher and
political economist
Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour mar ...
who made significant contributions to the methods of statistics during the 1880s. From 1891 onward, he was appointed the founding editor of ''
The Economic Journal
''The Economic Journal'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal of economics published on behalf of the Royal Economic Society by Oxford University Press. The journal was established in 1891 and publishes papers from all areas of economics.The edito ...
''.
Life
Ysidro Francis Edgeworth- the order of his forenames later reversed- was born in
Edgeworthstown
Edgeworthstown or Mostrim () is a small town in County Longford, Ireland. The town is in the east of the county, near the border with County Westmeath. Nearby towns are Longford 12 km to the west, Mullingar 26 km to the east, Athlone 4 ...
,
County Longford
County Longford ( gle, Contae an Longfoirt) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Longford. Longford County Council is the local authority for the county. The population of the county was 46,6 ...
, Ireland, son of Francis Beaufort Edgeworth and his wife, Rosa Florentina, daughter of Catalan general Antonio Eroles. Francis Beaufort Edgeworth, when "a restless philosophy student at
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
on his way to
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
", had met Rosa, a teenage
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
refugee, on the steps of the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
, and they subsequently eloped. Francis Beaufort Edgeworth was son of the politician, writer, and inventor
Richard Lovell Edgeworth
Richard Lovell Edgeworth (31 May 1744 – 13 June 1817) was an Anglo-Irish politician, writer and inventor.
Biography
Edgeworth was born in Pierrepont Street, Bath, England, son of Richard Edgeworth senior, and great-grandson of Sir Sal ...
(father also of the writer
Maria Edgeworth
Maria Edgeworth (1 January 1768 – 22 May 1849) was a prolific Anglo-Irish novelist of adults' and children's literature. She was one of the first realist writers in children's literature and was a significant figure in the evolution of the n ...
), by his fourth wife, the botanical artist and memoirist
Frances Anne, daughter of the Anglican clergyman and geographer
Daniel Augustus Beaufort
Daniel Augustus Beaufort LL.D. (1 October 1739 – 1821), was an Anglican priest and geographer, born in England to French Huguenot parents. He was rector of Navan, County Meath, Ireland, from 1765 to 1818, and a talented amateur architect also ...
, of
French Huguenot
The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Bez ...
origin. The Edgeworth family, which settled in Ireland in the 1580s, was distinguished, descending from Francis Edgeworth, joint
Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper
The Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper was a civil servant within the Irish Chancery in the Dublin Castle administration. His duties corresponded to the offices of Clerk of the Crown and Clerk of the Hanaper in the English Chancery. Latterly, the o ...
in 1606, who inherited a fortune from his brother
Edward Edgeworth
Edward Edgeworth, D.D. (died 1595) was an Anglican bishop in the last decade of the sixteenth century.
An Englishman, probably from Edgware, north London, he was Vicar of East Kirkby before coming over to Ireland, probably in the early 1560s. H ...
,
Bishop of Down and Connor
The Bishop of Down and Connor is an episcopal title which takes its name from the town of Downpatrick (located in County Down) and the village of Connor (located in County Antrim) in Northern Ireland. The title is still used by the Catholic Chur ...
. Richard Lovell Edgeworth was a descendant, through his mother, of the English judge Sir
Salathiel Lovell
Sir Salathiel Lovell (1631/2–1713) was an English judge, Recorder of London, an ancient and bencher of Gray's Inn, and a Baron of the Exchequer.
Origins and education
Lovell was the son of Benjamin Lovell, rector of Lapworth, Warwickshire, and ...
.
The youngest of seven children, Edgeworth did not attend school, but was educated by private
tutor
TUTOR, also known as PLATO Author Language, is a programming language developed for use on the PLATO system at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign beginning in roughly 1965. TUTOR was initially designed by Paul Tenczar for use in co ...
s at the Edgeworthstown estate until he reached the age to enter university.
As a student at
Trinity College Dublin
, name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin
, motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin)
, motto_lang = la
, motto_English = It will last i ...
he studied classics getting a scholarship in 1863 and graduating in 1865, and at
Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...
, Edgeworth studied ancient and modern languages. A voracious
autodidact
Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning and self-teaching) is education without the guidance of masters (such as teachers and professors) or institutions (such as schools). Generally, autodidacts are individua ...
, he studied mathematics and economics only after he had completed university. He qualified as a
barrister
A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...
in London in 1877 but did not practise.
On the basis of his publications in economics and
mathematical statistics
Mathematical statistics is the application of probability theory, a branch of mathematics, to statistics, as opposed to techniques for collecting statistical data. Specific mathematical techniques which are used for this include mathematical an ...
in the 1880s, Edgeworth was appointed to a chair in economics at
King's College London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
in 1888, and in 1891, he was appointed
Drummond Professor of Political Economy
The Drummond Professorship of Political Economy at All Souls College, Oxford has been held by a number of distinguished individuals, including three Nobel laureates. The professorship is named after and was founded by Henry Drummond.
List of ...
at
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
. In 1891, he was also appointed the founding editor of ''
The Economic Journal
''The Economic Journal'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal of economics published on behalf of the Royal Economic Society by Oxford University Press. The journal was established in 1891 and publishes papers from all areas of economics.The edito ...
''. He continued as editor or joint-editor until his death 35 years later.
Edgeworth was a highly influential figure in the development of
neo-classical economics
Neoclassical economics is an approach to economics in which the production, consumption and valuation (pricing) of goods and services are observed as driven by the supply and demand model. According to this line of thought, the value of a good ...
. He was the first to apply certain formal mathematical techniques to individual decision making in economics. He developed
utility theory
As a topic of economics, utility is used to model worth or value. Its usage has evolved significantly over time. The term was introduced initially as a measure of pleasure or happiness as part of the theory of utilitarianism by moral philosopher ...
, introducing the
indifference curve
In economics, an indifference curve connects points on a graph representing different quantities of two goods, points between which a consumer is ''indifferent''. That is, any combinations of two products indicated by the curve will provide the c ...
and the famous
Edgeworth box In economics, an Edgeworth box, sometimes referred to as an Edgeworth-Bowley box, is a graphical representation of a market with just two commodities, ''X'' and ''Y'', and two consumers. The dimensions of the box are the total quantities Ω''x'' and ...
, which is now familiar to undergraduate students of
microeconomics
Microeconomics is a branch of mainstream economics that studies the behavior of individuals and firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources and the interactions among these individuals and firms. Microeconomics fo ...
. He is also known for the
Edgeworth conjecture
Edgeworth's limit theorem is an economic theorem created by Francis Ysidro Edgeworth that examines a range of possible outcomes which may result from free market exchange or barter between groups of people. It shows that while the precise location ...
, which states that the
core
Core or cores may refer to:
Science and technology
* Core (anatomy), everything except the appendages
* Core (manufacturing), used in casting and molding
* Core (optical fiber), the signal-carrying portion of an optical fiber
* Core, the centra ...
of an economy shrinks to the set of
competitive equilibria as the number of
agents in the economy gets larger. In statistics, Edgeworth is most prominently remembered by having his name on the
Edgeworth series The Gram–Charlier A series (named in honor of Jørgen Pedersen Gram and Carl Charlier), and the Edgeworth series (named in honor of Francis Ysidro Edgeworth) are series that approximate a probability distribution in terms of its cumulants. The se ...
.
His most original and creative book on economics was ''Mathematical Psychics: An Essay on the Application of Mathematics to the Moral Sciences'', published in 1881 at the beginning of his long career in the subject. The book was notoriously difficult to read. He frequently referenced literary sources and interspersed the writing with passages in a number of languages, including
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, French and
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
. The mathematics was similarly difficult, and a number of his creative applications of mathematics to economic or moral issues were judged as incomprehensible. However, one of the most influential economists of the time,
Alfred Marshall
Alfred Marshall (26 July 1842 – 13 July 1924) was an English economist, and was one of the most influential economists of his time. His book '' Principles of Economics'' (1890) was the dominant economic textbook in England for many years. I ...
, commented in his review of ''Mathematical Psychics'':
:''This book shows clear signs of genius, and is a promise of great things to come... His readers may sometimes wish that he had kept his work by him a little longer till he had worked it out a little more fully, and obtained that simplicity which comes only through long labour. But taking it as what it claims to be, 'a tentative study', we can only admire its brilliancy, force, and originality.''
Edgeworth's close friend,
William Stanley Jevons
William Stanley Jevons (; 1 September 183513 August 1882) was an English economist and logician.
Irving Fisher described Jevons's book ''A General Mathematical Theory of Political Economy'' (1862) as the start of the mathematical method in ec ...
, said of ''Mathematical Psychics'':
:''Whatever else readers of this book may think about it, they would probably all agree that it is a very remarkable one.... There can be no doubt that in the style of his composition Mr. Edgeworth does not do justice to his matter. His style, if not obscure, is implicit, so that the reader is left to puzzle out every important sentence like an enigma.''
The
Royal Statistical Society
The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is an established statistical society. It has three main roles: a British learned society for statistics, a professional body for statisticians and a charity which promotes statistics for the public good.
...
awarded him the
Guy Medal
The Guy Medals are awarded by the Royal Statistical Society in three categories; Gold, Silver and Bronze. The Silver and Bronze medals are awarded annually. The Gold Medal was awarded every three years between 1987 and 2011, but is awarded biennia ...
in Gold in 1907. Edgeworth served as the president of the Royal Statistical Society, 1912–14. In 1928,
Arthur Lyon Bowley
Sir Arthur Lyon Bowley, FBA (6 November 1869 – 21 January 1957) was an English statistician and economist who worked on economic statistics and pioneered the use of sampling techniques in social surveys.
Early life
Bowley's father, James Wil ...
published a book entitled and devoted to ''F. Y. Edgeworth's Contributions to Mathematical Statistics''.
Contributions to economics
In ''Mathematical Psychics'' (1881), his most famous and original book, he criticised Jevons's theory of
barter
In trade, barter (derived from ''baretor'') is a system of exchange in which participants in a transaction directly exchange goods or services for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money. Economists distingu ...
exchange
Exchange may refer to:
Physics
*Gas exchange is the movement of oxygen and carbon dioxide molecules from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Places United States
* Exchange, Indiana, an unincorporated community
* ...
, showing that under a system of "recontracting" there will be, in fact, many solutions, an "indeterminacy of contract". Edgeworth's "range of final settlements" was later resurrected by
Martin Shubik
Martin Shubik (1926-2018) was an American mathematical economist who specialized in game theory, defense analysis, and the theory of money and financial institutions. The latter was his main research interest and he coined the term "mathematical ...
(1959) to be the game-theoretic concept of "the core".
Edgeworth's conjecture
When the number of agents in an economy increases, the degree of indeterminacy is reduced.
In the limit case of an infinite number of agents (perfect competition), contract becomes fully determinate and identical to the 'equilibrium' of economists. The only way of resolving this indeterminacy of contract would be to appeal to the
utilitarian
In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals.
Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different charac ...
principle of maximising the sum of the
utilities
A public utility company (usually just utility) is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service (often also providing a service using that infrastructure). Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and r ...
of traders over the range of final settlements. Incidentally, it was in this 1881 book that Edgeworth introduced into economics the generalised utility function, ''U''(''x'', ''y'', ''z'', ...), and drew the first 'indifference curve'.
International trade
He was the first one to use offer curves and community indifference curves to illustrate its main propositions, including the "optimal
tariff
A tariff is a tax imposed by the government of a country or by a supranational union on imports or exports of goods. Besides being a source of revenue for the government, import duties can also be a form of regulation of foreign trade and poli ...
".
Taxation paradox
Taxation of a good may actually result in a decrease in price.
He set the utilitarian foundations for highly progressive taxation, arguing that the optimal distribution of taxes should be such that 'the marginal disutility incurred by each taxpayer should be the same' (Edgeworth, 1897).
Monopoly pricing
In 1897, in an article on monopoly pricing, Edgeworth criticised Cournot's exact solution to the
duopoly
A duopoly (from Greek δύο, ''duo'' "two" and πωλεῖν, ''polein'' "to sell") is a type of oligopoly where two firms have dominant or exclusive control over a market. It is the most commonly studied form of oligopoly due to its simplicit ...
problem with quantity adjustments as well as Bertrand's "instantly competitive" result in a duopoly model with price adjustment. At the same time, Edgeworth showed how price competition between two firms with capacity constraints and/or rising
marginal cost
In economics, the marginal cost is the change in the total cost that arises when the quantity produced is incremented, the cost of producing additional quantity. In some contexts, it refers to an increment of one unit of output, and in others it r ...
curves resulted in indeterminacy. This gave rise to the
Bertrand–Edgeworth model
In microeconomics, the Bertrand–Edgeworth model of price-setting oligopoly looks at what happens when there is a homogeneous product (i.e. consumers want to buy from the cheapest seller) where there is a limit to the output of firms which are wi ...
of oligopoly.
Marginal productivity theory
Edgeworth criticised the marginal productivity theory in several articles (1904, 1911), and tried to refine the neo-classical theory of distribution on a more solid basis. Although his work in questions of
war finance during World War I was original, they were a bit too theoretical and did not achieve the practical influence he had hoped.
Edgeworth's limit theorem
Edgeworth's limit theorem relates to equilibrium of supply and demand in a free market. See
Edgeworth's limit theorem
Edgeworth's limit theorem is an economic theorem created by Francis Ysidro Edgeworth that examines a range of possible outcomes which may result from free market exchange or barter between groups of people. It shows that while the precise location ...
.
Though Edgeworth's economic ideas were original and in depth, his contemporaries frequently complained of his manner of expression for lack of clarity. He was prone to
verbosity
Verbosity or verboseness is speech or writing that uses more words than necessary. The opposite of verbosity is plain language. Some teachers, including the author of ''The Elements of Style'', warn against verbosity; similarly Mark Twain and Er ...
and coining obscure words without providing definition for the reader.
[. See in particular Section 3, "Edgeworth's Style", pp. 292–293.]
Publications
Collections/selections
* F. Y. Edgeworth (1925) ''Papers relating to political economy'' 3 vols. Available online a
Gallica*
* Charles R. McCann Jr. (ed.) (1966) ''F.Y. Edgeworth: Writings in Probability, Statistics and Economics,'' 3 vols. Cheltenham, Glos.: Elgar.
*
Individual works
*"Mr. Matthew Arnold on Bishop Butler's Doctrine of Self-Love", 1876, ''Mind''
*''New and Old Methods of Ethics'', 1877.
"The Hedonical Calculus" 1879, ''Mind'', pp. 394–408
*
*"Mr. Leslie Stephen on Utilitarianism", 1882, ''Mind''
"The Law of Error" 1883, ''Phil Mag'', pp. 300–309
*"The Method of Least Squares", 1883, ''Phil Mag''
*"The Physical Basis of Probability", 1883, ''Phil Mag''
*"On the Method of Ascertaining a Change in the Value of Gold", 1883, ''JRSS''
*"Review of Jevons's ''Investigations''", 1884, ''Academy''
*"The Rationale of Exchange", 1884, ''JRSS''
*"The Philosophy of Chance", 1884, ''Mind''
"On the Reduction of Observations" 1884, ''Phil Mag'', pp. 135–141
*"A Priori Probabilities", 1884, ''Phil Mag''
"Chance and Law" 1884, ''Hermathena'', pp. 154–163
*"Methods of Statistics", 1885, ''Jubilee Volume of RSS''.
*"The Calculus of Probabilities Applied to Psychic Research, I & II", 1885, 1886, ''Proceedings of Society for Psychic Research''
*"On Methods of Ascertaining Variations in the Rate of Births, Deaths and Marriages", 1885, ''JRSS''
*"Progressive Means", 1886, ''JRSS''
*"The Law of Error and the Elimination of Chance", 1886 ''Phil Mag''
*"On the Determination of the Modulus of Errors", 1886, ''Phil Mag''
*"Problems in Probabilities", 1886, ''Phil Mag''
*"Review of Sidgwick's Scope and Method", 1886, ''Academy''
*"Review of Jevons's Journals", 1886, ''Academy''
*"Four Reports by the committee investigating best method of ascertaining and measuring variations in the monetary standard", 1887, ''Reports of the BAAS (Parts I & 3; Part 2)''
*"Observations and Statistics: An essay on the theory of errors of observation and the first principles of statistics", 1887, ''Transactions of Cambridge Society''.
*''Metretike, or the method of measuring probability and utility'', 1887.
*"On Observations Relating to Several Quantities", 1887, ''Hermathena''
*"The Law of Error", 1887, ''Nature''
*"The Choice of Means", 1887, ''Phil Mag''
*"On Discordant Observations", 1887, ''Phil Mag''
*"The Empirical Proof of the Law of Error", 1887, ''Phil Mag''
*"On a New Method of Reducing Observations Relating to Several Quantities", 1888, ''Phil Mag''
*"New Methods of Measuring Variation in General Prices, 1888, ''JRSS''
*"The Statistics of Examinations", 1888, ''JRSS''
*"The Value of Authority Tested by Experiment", 1888, ''Mind''
*"Mathematical Theory of Banking", 1888, ''JRSS''
*"On the Application of Mathematics to Political Economy: Address of the President of Section F of the British Association for the Advancement of Science", 1889, ''JRSS''
*"The Mathematical Theory of Political Economy: Review of Walras's Elements", 1889, ''Nature''
*"Review of Wicksteed's ''Alphabet''", 1889, ''Academy''
*"Review of Bohm-Bawerk's ''Kapital und Kapitalismus''", 1889, ''Academy''
*"Review of Bertrand's Calcul des Probabilites", 1889, ''J of Education''
*"Points at which Mathematical Reasoning is Applicable to Political Economy", 1889, ''Nature''
*"Appreciation of Gold", 1889, ''QJE''
*"The Element of Chance in Competitive Examinations", 1890, ''JRSS''
*"Economic Science and Statistics", 1889, ''Nature''
*"Review of Marshall's Principles", 1890, ''Nature''
*"Review of Jevons's Pure Logic", 1890, ''Academy''
*"Review of Walras's Elements", 1890, ''Academy''
*"Review of Bohm-Bawerk's Capital and Interest", 1890, ''Academy''
*"La Théorie mathématique de l'offre et de la demande et le côut de production", 1891, ''Revue d'Economie Politique''
*"Osservazioni sulla teoria matematica dell' economica politica", 1891, ''GdE'' (trans. "On the Determinateness of Economic Equilibrium")
*"Ancora a proposito della teoria del baratto", 1891, ''GdE''
*"Review of Ricardo's Principles", 1891, ''J of Education''
* "
The British Economic Association", 1891, In:
''The Economic Journal'' (''EJ''), Vol. 1, pp. 1–14 (in
Wikisource
Wikisource is an online digital library of free-content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project (each instance usually rep ...
)
*"Review of Keynes's Scope and Method", 1891, ''EJ''
*"An Introductory Lecture on Political Economy", 1891, ''EJ''
*"Review of Sidgwick's Elements of Politics", 1891, ''EJ''
*"Review of Second Edition of Marshall's Principles", 1891, ''EJ''
*"Mathematical Investigations in the Theory of Value and Prices," Connecticut Academy, 1892.
*"Correlated Averages", 1892, ''Phil Mag''
*"The Law of Error and Correlated Averages", 1892, ''Phil Mag''.
*"Recent Attempts to Evaluate the Amount of Coin Circulating in a Country", 1892, ''EJ''
*"Review of Marshall's Economics of Industry", 1892, ''Nature''
*"Review of Cantillon's Essai", 1892, ''EJ''
*"Review of Palgrave's Dictionary", 1892, ''EJ''
*"Review of Bohm-Bawerk's Positive Theory of Capital", 1892, ''EJ''
*"Review of Smart's Introduction to the Theory of Value", 1892, ''EJ''
*"Review of Dusing's Das Geschlechtverhaltniss", 1892, ''EJ''
*"Review of Benson's Capital, Labor and Trade", 1892, ''EJ''
*"Review of Smart's Women's Wages", 1893
*"Review of Bonar's Philosophy", 1893, ''Mind''
*"Review of Walsh's Bimetallism", 1893, ''EJ''
*"Review of Fisher's Mathematical Investigations", 1893, ''EJ''
*"Professor Böhm-Bawerk on the Ultimate Standard of Value", 1894, ''EJ''
*"One More Word on the Ultimate Standard of Value", 1894, ''EJ''
*"Review of Wiser's Natural Value", 1894, ''EJ''
*"Theory of International Values: Parts I, II and III", 1894, ''EJ''
*"Recent Writings on Index Numbers", 1894, ''EJ''
*"The Measurement of Utility by Money", 1894, ''EJ''
*"Asymmetric Correlation between Social Phenomenon", 1894, ''JRSS''
*Entries: "Average", "Census", "Cournot", "Curves", "Demand Curves", Difficulty of Attainment", "Distance in Time", "Error", 1894, in Palgrave, editor, ''Dictionary of Political Economy, Vol. 1''.
*"Review of the Webbs' History of Trade Unionism", 1894, ''EJ''
*"Review of Third Edition of Marshall's Principles", 1895, ''EJ''
*"Mr. Pierson on the Scarcity of Gold", 1895, ''EJ''
*"Thoughts on Monetary Reform", 1895, ''EJ''
*"The Stationary State in Japan", 1895, ''EJ''
*"A Defense of Index-Numbers", 1896, ''EJ''
*"Statistics on Unprogressive Communities", 1896, ''JRSS''
*"The Asymmetrical Probability Curve (Abstract)", 1894, ''Proceedings of the Royal Society''
*"The Asymmetrical Probability Curve", 1896, ''Phil Mag''
*"The Compound law of Error", 1896, ''Phil Mag''
*Entries: "Gossen", "Index Numbers", "Intrinsic Value", "Jenkin", "Jennings", "Least Squares" and "Mathematical Method", 1896, in Palgrave, editor, ''Dictionary of Political Economy, Vol. 2''.
*"Review of Price's Money", 1896, ''EJ''
*"Review of Nicholson's Strikes and Social Problems", 1896, ''EJ''
*"Review of Pierson's Leerboek, Vol. 1", 1896, ''EJ''
*"Review of Pierson's Leerkook, Vol. 2", 1897, ''EJ''
*"Review of Bastable, Theory of International Trade", 1897, ''EJ''
*"Review of Grazani's Istituzioni", 1897, ''EJ''
*"La teoria pura del monopolio", 1897, GdE, (trans."The Pure Theory of Monopoly")
*"The Pure Theory of Taxation: Parts I, II and III", 1897, ''EJ''
*"Miscellaneous Applications of the Calculus of Probabilities", Parts 1, 2, 3, 1897, 1898, ''JRSS''
*"Review of Cournot's Recherches", 1898, ''EJ''
*"Professor Graziani on the Mathematical Theory of Monopoly", 1898, ''EJ''
*"Review of Darwin's Bimetallism", 1898, ''EJ''
*"On the Representation of Statistics by Mathematical Formulae", Part 1 (1898), Parts 2, 3, 4 (1899)
*"On a Point in the Theory of International Trade", 1899, ''EJ''
*"Review of Davidson, Bargain Theory of Wages", 1899, ''EJ''
*"Professor Seligman on the Mathematical Method in Political Economy", 1899, ''EJ''
*Entries: "Pareto", "Pareto's Law", "Probability", Supply Curve" and "Utility", 1899, in Palgrave, editor, ''Dictionary of Political Economy, Vol. 3''
*"Answers to Questions by Local Taxation Commission", 1899, ''Reprint of Royal Commission for Local Taxation''
*"The Incidence of Urban Rates, Parts I, II and III" 1900, ''EJ''
*"Defence of Mr. Harrison's Calculation of the Rupee Circulation", 1900, ''EJ''
*"Review of J.B. Clark's Theory of Distribution", 1900, ''EJ''
*"Review of Smart's Taxation of Land-Values", 1900, ''EJ''
*"Review of Bastable, Theory of International Trade (3rd edition)", 1897, ''EJ''
*"Review of Bonar and Hollander, Letters of Ricardo", 1900, ''EJ''
*"Mr. Walsh on the Measurement of General Exchange Value", 1901, ''EJ''
*"Disputed Points in the Theory of International Trade", 1901, ''EJ''
*"Review of Gide's Cooperation", 1902, ''EJ''
*"Review of Wells's Anticipations", 1902, ''EJ''
*"Methods of Representing Statistics of Wages and Other Groups Not *"Fulfilling the Normal Law of Error", with A.L. Bowley, 1902, ''JRSS''
*"The Law of Error", 1902, ''Encycl Britannica''
*"Review of Cannan's History of Theories of Production", 1903, ''EJ''
*"Review of Bortkiewicz's Anwendungen and Pareto's Anwendungen", 1903, ''EJ''
*"Review of Bastable's Public Finance", 1903, ''EJ''
*"Review of Bastable's Cartels et Trusts", 1903, ''EJ''
*"Review of Pigou's Riddle of the Tariff", 1904, ''EJ''
*"Review of Nicholson's Elements", 1904, ''EJ''
*"Review of Bowley's National Progress", 1904, ''EJ''
*"Review of Plunkett's Ireland", 1904, ''EJ''
*"Review of Northon's Loan Credit", 1904, ''EJ''
*"Review of Graziani's Istituzione", 1904, ''EJ''
*"Review of Dietzel's Vergeltungzolle", 1904, ''EJ''
*"Preface", 1904, in J.R. MacDonald, editor, ''Women in the Printing Trades''.
*"The Theory of Distribution", 1904, ''QJE''
*"The Law of Error", 1905, ''Transactions of Cambridge Society''
*"Review of Nicholson's History of English Corn Laws", 1905, ''EJ''
*"Review of Cunynghame's Geometrical Political Economy", 1905, ''EJ''
*"Review of Carver's Theory of Distribution", 1905, ''EJ''
*"Review of Taussig's Present Position", 1905, ''EJ''
*"Review of Henry Sidgwick: A memoir", 1906, ''EJ''
*"The Generalised Law of Error, or Law of Great Numbers", 1906, ''JRSS''
*"Recent Schemes for Rating Urban Land Values", 1906, ''EJ''
*"On the Representation of Statistical Frequency by a Series", 1907, ''JRSS''
*"Statistical Observations on Wasps and Bees", 1907, ''Biometrika''
*"Review of de Foville's Monnaie and Guyot's Science economique", 1907, ''EJ''
*"Appreciations of Mathematical Theories", Parts I & II (1907), Parts III & IV (1908), ''EJ''
*"On the Probable Errors of Frequency Constants", I, II & III (1908), Add. (1909), ''JRSS''
*"Review of Andreades's Lecture on the Census", 1908, ''EJ''
*"Review of Rea's Free Trade", 1908, ''EJ''
*"Review of Withers's Meaning of Money", 1909, ''EJ''
*"Review of Mitchell's Gold Prices", 1909, ''EJ''
*"Review of Jevons's Investigations", 1909, ''EJ''
*"Application du calcul des probabilités à la Statistique", 1909, ''Bulletin de l'Institut international de statistique''
*"On the Use of the Differential Calculus in Economics to Determine Conditions of Maximum Advantage", 1909, ''Scientia''
*"Applications of Probabilities to Economics, Parts I & II", 1910, ''EJ''.
*"The Subjective Element in the First Principles of Taxation", 1910, ''QJE''
*"Review of John Stuart Mill's Principles", 1910, ''EJ''
*"Review of Colson's Cours", 1910, ''EJ''
*"Review of J. Maurice Clark's Local Freight Discriminations", 1910, ''EJ''
*"Review of Hammond's Railway Rate Theories", 1911, ''EJ''
*"Probability and Expectation", 1911, ''Encycl Britannica''
*"Monopoly and Differential Prices", 1911, ''EJ''
*"Contributions to the Theory of Railway Rates", Part I & II (1911), Part III (1912), Part IV (1913), ''EJ''
*"Review of Moore's Laws of Wages", 1912, ''EJ''
*"Review of Pigou's Wealth and Welfare", 1913, ''EJ''
*"On the Use of the Theory of Probabilities in Statistics Relating to Society", 1913, ''J of RSS''
*"A Variant Proof of the Distribution of Velocities in a Molecular Chaos", 1913, ''PhilMag''
*"On the Use of Analytical Geometry to Represent Certain Kinds of Statistics", Parts I–V, 1914, ''J of RSS''
*"Recent Contributions to Mathematical Economics, I & II", 1915, ''EJ''
*''On the Relations of Political Economy to War'', 1915.
*''The Cost of War and ways of reducing it suggested by economic theory'', 1915.
*"Economists on War: Review of Sombart, etc.", 1915, ''EJ''
*"Review of Pigou's Economy and Finance of War", 1916, ''EJ''
*"Review of Preziosi's La Germania alla Conquista dell' Italia", 1916, ''EJ''
*"British Incomes and Property", 1916, ''EJ''
*"On the Mathematical Representation of Statistical Data", Part I (1916), Parts II–IV (1917), ''J of RSS''
*"Review of Gill's National Power and Prosperity", 1917, ''EJ''
*"Review of Lehfeldt's Economics in Light of War", 1917, ''EJ''
*"Some German Economic Writings about the War", 1917, ''EJ''
*"After-War Problems: Review of Dawson at al.", 1917, ''EJ''
*"Review of Westergaard's Scope and Methods of Statistics", 1917, ''JRSS''
*"Review of Anderson's Value of Money", 1918, ''EJ''
*"Review of Moulton and Phillips on Money and Banking", 1918, ''EJ''
*"Review of Loria's Economic Causes of War", 1918, ''EJ''
*"Review of Arias's Principii", 1918, ''EJ''
*"Review of Smith-Gordon, Rural Reconstruction of Ireland and Russell's National Being", 1918, ''EJ''
*"On the Value of a Mean as Calculated from a Sample", 1918, ''EJ''
*"An Astronomer on the Law of Error", 1918, ''PhilMag''
*''Currency and Finance in Time of War'', 1918.
*"The Doctrine of Index-Numbers According to Prof. Wesley Mitchell", 1918, ''EJ''
*"Psychical Research and Statistical Method", 1919, ''JRSS''
*"Methods of Graduating Taxes on Income and Capital", 1919, ''EJ''
*"Review of Cannan's Money", 1919, ''EJ''
*"Review of Andreades's Historia", 1919, ''EJ''
*"Review of Lehfeldt's Gold Prices", 1919, ''EJ''
*''A Levy on Capital for the Discharge of the Debt'', 1919.
*"Mathematical Formulae and the National Commission on Income Tax", 1920, ''EJ''
*"On the Application of Probabilities to the Movement of Gas Molecules", Part I (1920), Part II (1922), ''Phil Mag''
"Entomological Statistics" 1920, ''Metron'', pp. 75–80
*"Review of Gustav Cassel's Theory of Social Economy", 1920, ''EJ''
*"Review of Bowley's Change in Distribution of National Income", 1920, ''JRSS''
*"Review of the Webbs' History of Trade Unionism", 1920, ''EJ''
*"Molecular Statistics", Part I (1921), Part II (1922), ''JRSS''
*"On the Genesis of the Law of Eror", 1921, ''PhilMag''
*"The Philosophy of Chance", 1922, ''Mind''
*"The Mathematical Economics of Professor Amoroso", 1922, ''EJ''
*"Equal Pay to Men and Women for Equal Work", 1922, ''EJ''
*"Review of Keynes's Treatise on Probability", 1922, ''JRSS''
*"Review of Pigou's Political Economy of War", 1922, ''EJ''
*"Statistics of Examinations", 1923, ''JRSS''
*"On the Use of Medians for Reducing Observations Relating to Several Quantities", 1923, ''Phil Mag''
"Mr. Correa Walsh on the Calculation of Index Numbers" 1923, ''JRSS''
*"Index Numbers According to Mr. Walsh", 1923, ''EJ''
*"Women's Wages in Relation to Economic Welfare", 1923, ''EJ''
::''Also available as'':
*"Review of Marshall's Money, Credit and Commerce", 1923, ''EJ''
*"Review of The Labour Party's Aim", 1923, ''EJ''
*"Review of Bowley's Mathematical Groundwork", 1924, ''EJ''
*"Review of Fisher's Economic Position of the Married Woman", 1924, ''EJ''
*"Untried Methods of Representing Frequency", 1924, ''JRSS''
*''Papers Relating to Political Economy'', 3 volumes, 1925.
*"The Plurality of Index-Numbers", 1925, ''EJ''
*"The Element of Probability in Index-Numbers", 1925, ''JRSS''
*"The Revised Doctrine of Marginal Social Product", 1925, ''EJ''
*"Review of J.M. Clark's Overhead Costs", 1925, ''EJ''.
* "mathematical method in political economy," 1926, ''Palgrave's Dictionary of Political Economy,'' reprinted in 1987, ''
The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', v. 3.
*"Mr Rhode's Curve and the Method of Adjustment", 1926, ''JRSS''
References
External links
*
*
*
Further reading
* P J FitzPatrick, "Leading British statisticians of the nineteenth century, ''Journal of the American Statistical Association'' 55 (1960), 38–70.
* M G Kendall, "Francis Ysidro Edgeworth, 1845–1926," ''Biometrika'' 55 (1968), 269–275.
*
Newman, Peter (1987). "Edgeworth, Francis Ysidro," ''The
New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', v. 2, pp. 84–98.
* _____. (2001). "Edgeworth, Francis Ysidro (1845–1926)," ''
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences
The ''International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences'', originally edited by Neil J. Smelser and
Paul B. Baltes, is a 26-volume work published by Elsevier. It has some 4,000 signed articles (commissioned by around 50 subject editor ...
'', pp. 4170–4175
Abstract.* Spiegel, Henry William. ''The Growth of Economic Thought''. Ed. Durham & London. Duke University Press, 1991.
* Stigler, Stephen M. (1987). "Edgeworth as statistician," ''The
New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', v. 2, pp. 98–98.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Edgeworth, Francis Ysidro
1845 births
1926 deaths
Academics of King's College London
Alumni of Trinity College Dublin
Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford
British people of Catalan descent
Drummond Professors of Political Economy
Economics journal editors
Fellows of the British Academy
General equilibrium theorists
20th-century Irish economists
Irish statisticians
Neoclassical economists
People from County Longford
Presidents of the Royal Statistical Society
Scholars of Trinity College Dublin
19th-century Irish economists
Burials at Holywell Cemetery
19th-century British economists