IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jhisec/v28y2006i01p95-109_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do Prudent Agents Play Lotteries? Von Neumann's Contribution to the Theory of Rational Behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Giocoli, Nicola

Abstract

The year 2003 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of John von Neumann (1903–1957), one of greatest geniuses of the last century. Beyond contributing to fields as diverse as set theory, quantum mechanics, atomic energy, and automatic computing, von Neumann has also had a decisive influence upon modern economics. From the invention of game theory to the axiomatization of expected utility, from the introduction of convex analysis and fixed-point techniques to the development of the balanced growth model, the von Neumann heritage can be clearly traced in several areas of our discipline. The aim of this paper is to clarify the relationship between the two concepts of rationality he devised in his classic 1944 book Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, written with the collaboration of the Austrian economist Oskar Morgenstern (von Neumann and Morgenstern 1953).

Suggested Citation

  • Giocoli, Nicola, 2006. "Do Prudent Agents Play Lotteries? Von Neumann's Contribution to the Theory of Rational Behavior," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(1), pages 95-109, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jhisec:v:28:y:2006:i:01:p:95-109_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S105383720000907X/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Malte Doehne & Catherine Herfeld, 2023. "How academic opinion leaders shape scientific ideas: an acknowledgment analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(4), pages 2507-2533, April.
    2. Giocoli, Nicola, 2011. "From Wald to Savage: homo economicus becomes a Bayesian statistician," MPRA Paper 34117, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jhisec:v:28:y:2006:i:01:p:95-109_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/het .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.