Profile Major Works Resources

Harvey Leibenstein, 1922-1994.

American microeconomist, industrial organization theorist and development economist at Harvard. 

Harvey Leibenstein is most famous for introducing the "x-efficiency" concept (1966), roughly a catch-all term for the notion that ideal technical efficiency is frustrated in reality by people and organizations, due to a variety of factors, such as  institutional frictions, missing markets and lack of information.  Leibenstein repeatedly tried (but did not succeed) to displace the conventional "allocative" (or Pareto) efficiency with his own notion of "x-efficiency" as a theoretical concept in Neoclassical welfare economics.  Nonetheless, Leibenstein is now often hailed as a pioneer of behavioral economics. 

 

  

top1.gif (924 bytes)Top

Major Works of  Harvey Leibeinstein

  • "Bandwagon, Snob and Veblen Effects in the Theory of Consumer Demand", 1950, QJE
  • A Theory of Economic-Demographic Development,1954
  • "The Theory of Underemployment in Backward Economies", 1957, JPE [pdf]
  • Economic Backwardness and Economic Growth, 1957
  • "Allocative Efficiency vs. 'X-Efficiency'", 1966, AER [pdf]
  • "Entrepreneurship and Development", 1968, AER
  • "Organizational or Frictional Equilibria", 1969, QJE
  • "Pitfalls in Benefit-Cost Analysis of Birth Prevention", 1969, Population Studies, [pdf]
  • "Comment on the Nature of X-Efficiency", 1972, QJE [pdf]
  • "Socio-economic Fertility Theories and their Relevance to Population Policy", 1974, ILR
  • "An Interpretation of the Economic Theory of Fertility: Promising path or blind alley?", 1974, JEL
  • "The Economic Theory of Fertility Decline", 1975, QJE.
  • Beyond Economic Man: a new foundation for microeconomics, 1976
  • General X-Efficiency Theory and Economic Development, 1978
  • "On the Basic Proposition of X-Efficiency Theory", 1978, AER.
  •  "'X-inefficiency Xists: A Reply to an Xorcist", 1978, AER
  • "A Branch of Economics is Missing: Micro-Micro Theory", 1979, JEL.
  • "The General X-Efficiency Paradigm and the Role of the Entrepreneur", 1979, in M.Rizzo, ed., Time, Uncertainty and Disequilibrium.
  • "The Prisoners’s Dilemma in the Invisible Hand: An Analysis of Intrafirm Productivity", 1982, AER.
  • "Property Rights and X-Efficiency: Comment", 1983, AER.
  • Inside the Firm: The inefficiencies of hierarchy, 1987

 
HET

 
top1.gif (924 bytes)Top

Resources on  Harvey Leibenstein

  • "The Xistence of X-Efficiency" by George Stigler, 1976, AER [pdf]
  • Leibenstein obituary at NY Times, 1994
  • X-Efficiency. Theory, Evidence and Applications, by Roger Frantz, 1997 [online]
  • "The Behavioral Economics of George Akerloff and Harvey Leibenstein", by Roger Frantz, 2004, J of Socio-Economics
  • "Leibenstein as a Behavioral Pioneer" by Roger Frantz, 2007, in Renaissance in Behavioral Economics [pdf]
  • "X-Efficacy vs. X-Efficiency" by Jason Potts, 2006, in Renaissance in Behavioral Economics [pdf]
  • Renaissance in Behavioral Economics: Essays in honor of Harvey Leibenstein, edited by R. Frantz, 2007 [online]
  • "Critical view on Leibenstein’s X-Efficiency Theory" by Michael Huil, 2014 [pdf]
  • "Herbert Simon" by Roger Frantz and Leslie March, 2015, Real World Decision-Making: Encyclopedia of Behavioral Sciences [pdf]
  • "Harvey Leibeinstein"  by Roger Frantz, 2015, Real World Decision-Making: Encyclopedia of Behavioral Sciences [pdf]
  • "Anti-Trust and X-Efficiency" by Roger Frantz, 2015, Antitrust Bulletin [pdf]
  • "Fifty Years of X-Efficiency Research" by Roger Fratnz [pdf]
  • Wikipedia

 

 
top1.gif (924 bytes)Top
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All rights reserved, Gonçalo L. Fonseca