Dear all,

I cannot swear that Menger's was the earliest mention.

However, it is clear from his Library in the archives located at Hitotsubashi University in Japan, where I have worked a lot, that Menger had read Auspitz and Lieben's book (so, after his own Grundsaetze der Volkswirtschaftslehre naturally) and heavily annotated it, most often in a *negative* way, principally arguing that the use of maths cannot substitute for (what Menger judged a) lack of clarity in the conceptual exposition (Darstellung).

For more, I have written a few words on Menger on Auspitz and Lieben (albeit for a larger audience than SHOE list members) in my 2010 Routledge volume.

Best,
Gilles Campagnolo
Full research professor at French National Center for Scientific Research
A senior member of Aix-Marseilles School of Economics
A Long Term research fellow at the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science

> ----------------------------------------
> From: Torsten Schmidt <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thu May 10 22:11:05 CEST 2012
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: [SHOE] Substitutes and Complements
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Might Menger?s (1871) discussion of ?complementäre Güter? be the earliest instance?  It seems he had no parallel terminology for substitutes, however.
> 
> The paring of terms is clearly present in Auspitz and Lieben (1889) who studied ?kompletirende und konkurrirende Artikel.?  It was their terminology that motivated Fisher?s (1892) ?competing and completing goods.?
> 
> Torsten Schmidt, UNH
> 
> 
> 
> From: Kevin Hoover 
> Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2012 1:12 PM
> To: [log in to unmask] 
> Subject: [SHOE] Substitutes and Complements
> Can anyone point to the earliest account of the distinction between substitutes and complements -- conceptually, if not in those very words?
> 
> Kevin Hoover
> 
> 
> 
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