Talk:Fred Hirsch (economist)

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This article is NOT an "orphan" --- it already has a link at "positional good", a very important class of goods in welfare theory, closely connected to the so-called Easterlin paradox, which Hirsch did a good deal to explain in his most important book on Social Limits to Growth, Harvard U. Pr., 1976.

The "godfather" of "post-classical" welfare (= social utility) studies is Marshall's successor at Cambridge, Pigou, who unfortunately was Keynes's nemesis. Pigou was mainly interested in what was later called "externalities", but what Hirsch called "positional goods" fall into the general class of phenomena Pigou studied. (They all share the property where the value of a good turns out NOT to be independent of other traders' market transactions; such independence is an important presupposition of classical Walrasian equilibrium theory, although it's often violated.)

A definitive overview of related literature on utility, welfare, "satisfaction" and happiness is Robert E. Lane: The Market Experience, Cambridge U. Pr. 1991.

AUTHORS: get your act(s) together !!!

Eckehart Köhler, Vienna (where Hirsch was born!) [I don't have an account yet, but I'll work on it.] 178.190.78.252 (talk) 12:00, 20 August 2012 (UTC)