Profile Major Works Resources

William Ernest Johnson, 1859-1931.

Oft-neglected Cambridge  logician, critical in the early development of mathematical economics and a bridging figure between the Marginalist Revolution and the Paretian revival of the 1930s.

The son of a schoolmaster, W.E. Johnson was born, raised, educated and made his career in Cambridge.  Attending King's College on a mathematical scholarship, Johnson grew particularly inclined towards logic and took his degree through the Moral Sciences tripos.  After a brief spell earning a living as a mathematics tutor, from 1887 to 1900, Johnson taught logic, psychology and education at various Cambridge colleges.  In 1902, Johnson was elected a fellow of King's and obtained the Sidgwick Lectureship in moral sciences, positions he would maintain for the remainder of his life.  He was a teacher of John Maynard Keynes.

Scarely publishing, W.E. Johnson maintained an interest in economics.  His reputation rests largely on his famous 1913 paper, which independently derived demand functions from indifference curves (and placed them in the form we use today). Showed "paradox" that convex indifference curves could yield upward-sloping demand. Defined substitutes and complements in terms of rates of change of marginal rates of substitution. Also quite presciently described a non-tatonnement "Edgeworth process".

 

  

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Major Works of W.E. Johnson

  • Trigonometry, 1888
  • "On Feeling as Indifference", Jan 1888, Mind (ref. to Bain's article)
  • "Johnstone's Logic", 1888, Mind
  • "Venn's Logic of Chance", 1888, Mind
  • "Bosanquet's Logic", 1889, Mind
  • "Review of Clarke & Stocke", 1889, Mind
  • "Exchange and Distribution", 1891, Cambridge Econ Club
  • "The Logical Calculus", 1892, Mind
  • "On Certain Questions Concerned with Demand" with C.P. Sanger, 1894 Cambridge Econ Club
  • "Producer's Goods", "Supply", "Supply and Demand", 1899, in R.H.I. Palgrave, Dictionary of Political Economy
  • "Sur la theorie des equations logiques", 1901, Bibliotheque du Congres Int de Philosophie
  • "The Pure Theory of Utility Curves", 1913, EJ
  • "The Analysis of Thinking", 1918, Mind
  • Logic, 3 vols. 1921-4.
  • "Probability", 1932, Mind

 
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Resources on W.E. Johnson

 

 
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