Saturday, December 22, 2012

Frank P. Ramsey

I was reading through some lecture notes on the Ramsey Growth Model of economics, and was astounded to see the years Frank Ramsey lived in were only from 1903 to 1930. He died at age 26, but before going, he had become a professor of mathematics, and contributed to both philosophy and economics. This is clearly a sign I need to be less lazy. There's also a ton of related books and articles I would like to read to follow up on his theories:
  • His own writings on economics:  subjective probability and utility (1926), optimal taxation (1927) and optimal one-sector economic growth (1928)
  •  His writings on philosophy: Universals (1925), Facts and propositions (1927), Universals of law and of fact (1928), Knowledge (1929), Theories (1929), On Truth (1929), and General propositions and causality (1929)
  • The thesis of one of his friends/colleagues in philosophy: Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico Philosophicus
  • Game theory writings that brought his philosophy of knowledge and probability to the forefront: "Theory of Games and Economic Behavior" by Neumann and Morgenstern
Taught at King's College, as did John Maynard Keynes; I should look into their econ department

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