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Published by EH.NET  (July 1999) 
 
Robert B. Ekelund, Jr. and Robert F. Hebert. _Secret Origins of Modern 
Microeconomics: Dupuit and the Engineers_. Chicago: University of Chicago 
Press, 1999. xvi + 468 pp. $40.00 (cloth). ISBN: 0-226-19999-1. 
 
Reviewed for EH.NET by Marcel Boumans, Department of Economics, University 
of Amsterdam. <[log in to unmask]> 
 
                  Appropriated Origins of Microeconomics 
 
Secrets should be divulged and not belong to a few only. Therefore, right 
from the start the secret of the origin of modern microeconomics is given 
away by presenting it as the main thesis of this book, namely that 
"Microeconomics as we now know it was developed first and foremost by 
engineers rather than economists, and that its origins were French rather 
than British" (p. xi). So right from the beginning we know where we are and 
this book is seemingly set up to prove this claim. That is a pity, because 
it puts this book into a historiographically questionable framework: Whig 
history with the phrasing that belongs to it. "French econo-engineers, and 
a few kindred 'foreigners' who were drawn into their orbit, were not merely 
forerunners of neoclassical microeconomics: they were its inventors" (p. 
11). The next phrase is an even better example of this framework: "[T]he 
theory of utility and demand emerged like a chrysalis from the empirical 
cocoon of more than four decades of engineers' practical attempts to 
calculate and understand value" (pp. 75-6). 
 
This is a pity, because this historiographical strait jacket hinders us 
from seeing the real value of this work:  Robert Ekelund and Robert Hebert 
convincingly argue that the intellectual tradition of microeconomic inquiry 
can be traced back to the works of the members of the Corps des Ingenieurs 
des Ponts et Chausses (French corps of state civil engineers), most notably 
Jules Dupuit (1804-66). This is a rich book that discloses materials that 
before were inaccessible to historians of economics. They were inaccessible 
for two reasons: First, most of the French works discussed by Ekelund and 
Hebert have not been translated, which is certainly a handicap in a 
discipline whose language is predominantly English. The second reason is 
that materials mainly belong to the engineering literature, which is not 
the usual place to look for the origins of economics. This latter attitude 
has changed among current historians of economics, thanks to contributions 
like those of Ekelund and Hebert. 
 
The analysis of the French engineering literature (chapters 3-12) is 
preceded by a very informative chapter on French educational institutions, 
before and after the French Revolution, which explains partly why in France 
the contributions of the engineers were neglected by economists. The 
history of the French econo-engineering starts with an overview of 
benefit-cost studies from the seventeenth century onwards. Then it is shown 
how Say's value theory, specifically demand theory, was perceived by the 
engineers. Of importance was the discussion of whether and how (marginal) 
utility should be incorporated in the demand analysis. Next the authors 
give an exposition of (mainly) Dupuit's treatment of competition, monopoly, 
duopoly and costs-based pricing. Next comes an examination of Dupuit's 
analysis of price discrimination. The remaining chapters discuss the issues 
of spatial economics, the empirical studies of the engineers, and Dupuit's 
views on property and policy. Altogether these chapters give a clear 
exposition of the economic problems that French ponts engineers faced in 
era of major changes in the French infrastructure. If you want to, you can 
already recognize elements of the later microeconomics. But why should 
these works of the French engineers only have value in relation to modern 
microeconomics? On the contrary, this book shows how engineers dealing with 
their daily and earthly problems came to ingenious solutions that are very 
instructive to modern economists. For too long they were neglected in the 
history of economics.  Ekelund and Hebert's tribute to their work remedies 
this shortcoming. 
 
(Robert B. Ekelund, Jr., is the Edward K. and Catherine L. Lowder Eminent 
Scholar at Auburn University. Robert F. Hebert is the Russell Foundation 
Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies and professor of economics at Auburn 
University.) 
 
Marcel Boumans is Lecturer in History and Methodology of Economics at the 
University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands.  His current work involves 
models and measurement in economics. 
 
Copyright (c) 1999 by EH.NET and H-Net. All rights reserved. This work may 
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