Antoine Augustin Cournot (French: [ɑ̃twan oɡystɛ̃ kuʁno]; 28 August 1801 – 31 March 1877) was a French philosopher and mathematician who contributed to the development of economics.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
Antoine Augustin Cournot | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 28 August 1801 |
| Died | 31 March 1877 (aged 75) |
| Nationality | French |
| Alma mater | Sorbonne University |
| Known for | Cournot competition Oligopoly |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Economics Mathematics |
| Institutions | University of Grenoble |
Biography
editAntoine Augustin Cournot was born on August 28, 1801 at Gray, Haute-Saône.[7] He entered the preparatory school at Gray in 1809 where he studied until the age of 15.[7] He studied at College Royal of Besancon.[7]
In 1821 he entered one of the most prestigious Grandes Écoles, the École Normale Supérieure, and, according to Sandmo:
in 1823 he took a license degree in mathematics at Sorbonne University. He then became the private secretary of a field marshal who required assistance in writing his memoirs. This position left Cournot with considerable time for his own pursuits. In the course of his ten years in the field marshal's employment he took two doctoral degrees, one in mechanics and one in astronomy. In addition, he published a number of articles and even acquired a degree in law.[8]
Subsequently, Cournot held positions as professor of mathematics, chief examiner for undergraduate students, and rector of Dijon Academy.
By the time Cournot died in 1877, he was nearly blind.
Work
editEconomics
editCournot was mainly a mathematician, but had some influence in economics. His theories on monopolies and duopolies are still prevalent.[9] In 1838 the book Researches on Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth[10][11][12][13] was published, in which he used the application of the formulas and symbols of mathematics in economic analysis. This book was strongly criticized and scarcely successful during Cournot's lifetime. He attempted nonetheless to rewrite it twice. It is influential in economics today. Today many economists believe this book to be the point of departure for modern economic analysis[citation needed]. Cournot introduced the ideas of functions and probability into economic analysis[according to whom?]. He derived the first formula for the rule of supply and demand as a function of price and was the first to draw supply and demand curves on a graph [according to whom?], anticipating the work of Alfred Marshall by roughly thirty years. The Cournot duopoly model developed in his book also introduced the concept of a (pure strategy) Nash equilibrium, the reaction function and best-response dynamics.
Cournot believed that economists must utilize the tools of mathematics only to establish probable limits and to express less stable facts in more absolute terms. He further held that the practical uses of mathematics in economics do not necessarily involve strict numerical precision.[citation needed]
In the field of economics he is best known for his work in the field of oligopoly theory, Cournot competition, which is named after him.[14]
Philosophy
editCournot worked on determinism (in physics) and chance.
Unlike Pierre-Simon de Laplace, who thought that nothing happens by chance, and Aristotle, who thought that randomness and causality had nothing to do with each other, Cournot united the concepts, defining randomness as the encounter of two independent causal series.[15] This definition allows randomness even in perfectly deterministic events, and is used to generate random numbers by the combination of unrelated signals (for instance, temperature and sound).
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Fisher, Irving (1898). "Cournot and Mathematical Economics". The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 12 (2): 119–138. doi:10.2307/1882115. ISSN 0033-5533. JSTOR 1882115.
- ^ Friedman, James W. (2000). "The Legacy of Augustin Cournot". Cahiers d'économie politique / Papers in Political Economy. 37 (37): 31–46. doi:10.3406/cep.2000.1287. ISSN 0154-8344. JSTOR 43107480.
- ^ Ekelund, Robert B.; Hébert, Robert F. (1990). "Cournot and His Contemporaries: Is an Obituary the Only Bad Review?". Southern Economic Journal. 57 (1): 139–149. doi:10.2307/1060484. ISSN 0038-4038. JSTOR 1060484.
- ^ Nichol, A. J. (1938). "Tragedies in the Life of Cournot". Econometrica. 6 (3): 193–197. doi:10.2307/1907050. ISSN 0012-9682. JSTOR 1907050.
- ^ Roy, René (1933). "Cournot et l'école mathématique". Econometrica. 1 (1): 13–22. doi:10.2307/1912227. ISSN 0012-9682. JSTOR 1912227.
- ^ Roy, René (1939). "L'Oeuvre Économique d'Augustin Cournot". Econometrica. 7 (2): 134–144. doi:10.2307/1906836. ISSN 0012-9682. JSTOR 1906836.
- ^ a b c Moore, Henry L. (1905). "The Personality of Antoine Augustin Cournot". The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 19 (3): 370–399. doi:10.2307/1882658. ISSN 0033-5533. JSTOR 1882658.
- ^ Sandmo, Agnar (2011). Economics evolving. Princeton: Princeton university press. p. 146. ISBN 9780691148427.
- ^ Koutsoyiannis, A. (1979), Koutsoyiannis, A. (ed.), "Non-Collusive Oligopoly", Modern Microeconomics, London: Macmillan Education UK, pp. 215–236, doi:10.1007/978-1-349-16077-8_9, ISBN 978-1-349-16077-8, retrieved 2 March 2022
- ^ Antoine Augustin Cournot (1897). Researches into the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth. Macmillan.
- ^ Merritt, F. D. (1898). "Review of Researches into the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth". Journal of Political Economy. 6 (3): 426–430. doi:10.1086/250526. ISSN 0022-3808. JSTOR 1819059.
- ^ Edgeworth, F. Y. (1898). "Review of Researches into the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth.; A Brief Introduction to the Infinitesimal Calculus, Designed Especially to Aid in Reading Mathematical Economics and Statistics, Irving Fisher". The Economic Journal. 8 (29): 111–114. doi:10.2307/2956713. ISSN 0013-0133. JSTOR 2956713.
- ^ Fisher, Irving (1938). "Cournot Forty Years Ago". Econometrica. 6 (3): 198–202. doi:10.2307/1907051. ISSN 0012-9682. JSTOR 1907051.
- ^ Varian, Hal R. (2006) [Originally published 1987]. Intermediate Microeconomics: A Modern Approach (Seventh ed.). W. W. Norton & Company. p. 490. ISBN 0393927024.
- ^ Thierry Martin. "Cournot (A)". encyclo-philo.fr (in French). Retrieved 16 January 2017..
Further reading
edit- Touffut, Jean-Philippe, ed. (2007). Augustin Cournot: Modelling Economics. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. ISBN 978-1-84720-654-1.
- For an early 20th century evaluation see: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 321.
External links
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