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Thought I would update you, given the dead silence that followed my response about "neuter
goods."  It turns out that this is a murky business. Andrew Lyon at the University of
Maryland has a website dating from 2001 where he uses this
terminology as described, "neuter goods" having zero marginal utility and depicted as
vertical or horizontal segments of indifference curves. There is a 1999 reference in a
book translated from the Spanish by a psychologist and a 2000 website by a sophomore in
economics at the University of Chicago, all making the same usage.
 
When I inquired of Lyon, he said that he got the usage from an intermediate text by Jack
Hirshleifer in a course taught by Hal Varian. Varian uses the term "neutral goods" for
this concept in his Intermediate Microeconomics, but does not remember where he got it
from. He claims to have never used the term "neuter goods." I think Varian must be
credited with this use of "neutral goods."
 
Hirshleifer says that he has never used the term "neuter goods." However, starting with
the 1976 edition of his Intermediate Price Theory good he did talk about "goods, bads, and
neuters," with the latter having the meaning that is now being used for "neuter goods" by
a number of folks. Hirshleifer does not particularly care for the term "neuter goods," but
it does appear that he is probably the ultimate father of the term.
 
Barkley Rosser 
 
 
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