Foundations of Economic Analysis.

SAMUELSON, Paul Anthony.

Item Number: 3039

Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1959.

First edition, fifth printing, octavo, original maroon cloth. Signed by Paul A. Samuelson. From the library of Leonid Hurwicz, with his signature to the front free endpaper and markings in his hand throughout the text. Hurwicz originated incentive compatibility and mechanism design, which show how desired outcomes are achieved in economics, social science and political science. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2007. Paul A. Samuelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1970. A nice association linking these two giants of economic theory. Near fine in a good jacket with some wear and tear.

"Fifty years after it was written, "Foundations of Economic Analysis" (together with Hicks’ Value and Capital) is still one of the most inspiring classics of general equilibrium economics" (Niehans, History of Economic Theory). Paul Samuelson is one of the developers of both neo-Keynesian and neoclassical economics, the latter of which still dominates mainstream economics. He was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for having written considerable parts of economic theory, and he is one of the ten Nobel Prize winning economists still signing the Economist's statement opposing the Bush tax cuts. One of Samuelson's many novel contributions was that he generalized and applied mathematical methods developed for the study of thermodynamics to the field of economics. His inspiration for doing so came, in part, from his mentor, polymath Edwin Bisdwell Wilson who was a former Yale student of the founder of chemical thermodynamics, Willard Gibbs. Samuelson, therefore, is a successful example of interdisciplinarity, and he combined these ideas in his magnum opus Foundations of Economic Analysis (1947).