This paper examines how some of the main exponents of the Austrian school of economics addressed the issues related to the measurability of utility. The first part is devoted to the period before World War I. During this period, Menger and Wieser treated de facto utilities as if they were...

In his pivotal contributions during the marginal revolution, Leon Walras along with W.S. Jevons assigned subjective utility directly to commodities (goods and services) as, in effect, a simplifying assumption — an assumption destined to become the keystone of neoclassical economics. But this...

It is, of course, true of science that deeper theory opens new vistas, and economics may now justifiably advance to a more essential paradigm. The basis for this deeper theory is empirical (cardinal and measurable) instant utility (feeling state, Dolan [2002]) - the time derivative of utility...

Ronald Coase merged two traditions in economics, marginalism and institutionalism. Neoclassical economics in the 1930s was characterized by an abstract conception of marginalism and frictionless resource movement. Marginal analysis did not seek to uncover the source of individual human...

This paper develops a discussion and provides the basis for a dispute of the principal assumption on which the classical-neoclassical theory of perfect competition is based: is it indeed true that the individual product demand of each producer is perfectly elastic (horizontal) and the price is...

This paper examines the marginal utility as a theory of value in comparison with the theories which preceded it. It compares in detail the utility theory with the predominant theory of value of classical economics, a cost theory which saw labor as the ultimate source of value. By introducing a...

The model of Homo economicus has often been criticized as unrealistic. In particular, it has been found lacking for allegedly assuming that people are selfish, an assumption which is contradicted by both introspection and empirical evidence. The aim of this paper is to show that never in the...

Modern microeconomics foundations of industrial regulation policies were developed during the second half of the 19th century. One of the main theoretical and applied debates which is still an issue today concerns natural monopolies. Railroads were at the center of these debates, because of...

Paolo Sylos Labini's Oligopoly Theory and Technical Progress (1957) is considered one of the major contributions to entry-prevention models, especially after Franco Modigliani's famous formalization. Nonetheless, Modigliani neglected Sylos Labini's major aim when reviewing his work (1958),...