Abstract
Theories of measurement have applications throughout economics. Some applications are familiar because they are firmly established in the literature (think of utility theory and price indexes). But some are yet to be incorporated into the wider literature and many potential applications remain to be made. This entry does not survey the applications or the theories (see Pfanzagl 1968; Krantz et al. 1971 on theories of measurement), but (1) attempts to explain a certain kind of invariance principle and (2) shows how the principle can be applied to economic analysis.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Aczel, J. 1966. Lectures on functional equations and their applications. New York: Academic.
Arrow, K.J. 1951. Social choice and individual values. New York: Wiley.
Bridgman, P.W. 1922. Dimensional analysis. New Haven: Yale University Press.
de Jong, F.J. 1967. Dimensional analysis for economists. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co.
Falmagne, J.C., and L. Narens. 1983. Scales and meaningfulness of quantitative laws. Synthese 55: 287–325.
Fisher, I. 1911. The purchasing power of money. New York: The MacMillan Co.
Georgescu-Roegen, N. 1970. The economics of production. American Economic Review 60: 1–9.
Jevons, W.S. 1965. The theory of political economy, 5th ed. New York: Augustus M. Kelley.
Krantz, D.H., R.D. Luce, P. Suppes, and A. Tversky. 1971. Foundations of measurement, vol. I. New York: Academic.
Kurth, R. 1965. A note on dimensional analysis. American Mathematical Monthly 72: 965–969.
Leontief, W. 1947. Introduction to the internal structure of functional relationships. Econometrica 15: 361–373.
Luce, R.D. 1978. Dimensionally invariant numerical laws correspond to meaningful qualitative relations. Philosophy of Science 45: 1–16.
Luce, R.D., and M. Cohen. 1983. Factorizable automorphisms in solvable conjoint structures, I. Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra 27: 225–261.
Luce, R.D., and J.W. Tukey. 1964. Simultaneous conjoint measurement: A new type of fundamental measurement. Journal of Mathematical Psychology 1: 1–27.
Osborne, D.K. 1976a. Unified theory of derived measurement. Synthese 33: 455–481.
Osborne, D.K. 1976b. Irrelevant alternatives and social welfare. Econometrica 44: 1001–1015.
Pfanzagl, J. 1968. Theory of measurement. New York: Wiley.
Popper, K. 1963. Conjectures and refutations. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Ramsay, J.O. 1976. Algebraic representation in the physical and behavioral sciences. Synthese 33: 419–453.
Shephard, R.W. 1970. Theory of cost and production functions. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Whitney, H. 1968. The mathematics of physical quantities. American Mathematical Monthly 75: 115–138, 227–256.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2018 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Osborne, D.K. (2018). Transformations and Invariance. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1408
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1408
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-95188-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-95189-5
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences