JEVONS ON UTILITY, EXCHANGE, AND DEMAND THEORY: A REASSESSMENT *

Abstract

The scientific contribution of W. S. Jevons in the area of general demand theory has been a matter of some debate over the past century. Recently published documents and correspondence, together with Jevons's well-known Theory of Political Economy (1871), sketch a new drawing of his achievements in both partial and general equilibrium theories of demand and exchange. This paper employs these materials, along with additional mathematical derivations, to show that Jevons had the tools to develop a Marshallian demand function linking utility with demand and, further, that Jevons stood with Leon Walras in developing a general equilibrium approach to exchange theory. These inventions lead us to conclude that Jevons deserves more respect as one of the most important of a small and select group of theorists who founded the modern science of economics. Copyright 1989 by Blackwell Publishers Ltd and The Victoria University of Manchester