Cournot, Antoine-Augustin

Cournot, Antoine-Augustin

(born Aug. 28, 1801, Gray, France—died March 31, 1877, Paris) French economist and mathematician. The first economist to apply mathematics effectively to the treatment of economic questions, he made important contributions with his discussion of supply and demand functions, the shifting of taxes, and problems of international trade, and he is best remembered for his discussion of strategic behaviour in a market with only two producers, a so-called duopoly. His principal work is Researches into the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth (1838).

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Cournot, Antoine-Augustin 

Born Aug. 20, 1801, in Gray, Haute-Saône; died Apr. 2, 1877, in Paris. French mathematician, philosopher, and economist. Forerunner of the mathematical school of bourgeois political economy. Professor of mathematics at Lyon (from 1834) and rector of academies in Grenoble (from 1835) and Dijon (from 1854).

Cournot published a number of works in the 1830’s and 1840’s, including Researches Into the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth (1838), which was one of the first attempts to analyze economic phenomena through mathematical methods. His philosophy eclectically amalgamated the ideas of I. Kant and the positivists. His views became widespread in the last third of the 19th century, when the mathematical school took shape as a distinct trend in bourgeois political economy.

WORKS

De l’origine et des limites de la correspondance entre l’algebre et la géométrie. Paris 1847.
Essai sur les fondements de nos connaissances et sur les caractères de la critique philosophique, vols. 1–2. Paris, 1851.
Traité de l’enchaînement des idées fondamentales dans les sciences et dans l’histoire, vols. 1–2, new edition. Paris, 1911.
Principes de la théorie des richesses. Paris, 1863.

REFERENCE

Anikin, A. V. Iunost’ nauki. Moscow, 1971.

V. I. NEZNANOV