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Jevons, William Stanley (1835–1882)

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Abstract

This article examines William Stanley Jevons’s life and work against the background of Victorian disputes over the appropriate method of political economy. Jevons is commonly known as one of the founders of marginalist analysis in economics. As a genuine Victorian polymath, Jevons undertook research in many different fields of the sciences, meteorology, statistics and political economy in particular. This article shows how Jevons transposed his training in the natural sciences to political economy, in the process shifting from a labour to a utility theory of value and mathematizing the discipline as well.

This chapter was originally published in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd edition, 2008. Edited by Steven N. Durlauf and Lawrence E. Blume

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    Harro Maas

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    Maas, H. (2008). Jevons, William Stanley (1835–1882). In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_1198-2

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    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_1198-2

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    1. Latest

      Jevons, William Stanley (1835–1882)
      Published:
      25 March 2017

      DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_1198-2

    2. Original

      Jevons, William Stanley (1835–1882)
      Published:
      12 November 2016

      DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_1198-1

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