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From:
"Morgan,M" <[log in to unmask]>
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Societies for the History of Economics <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 25 Jan 2019 14:27:18 +0000
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Indeed, I believe that the terminology goes back in the insurance industry much earlier than this.  My memory may be wrong, but I seem to recall it being connected to a point in time where it became illegal to insure the life of other family members. 

Mary S. Morgan, 
Albert O. Hirschman Professor of History and Philosophy of Economics, LSE
Fellow of the British Academy, and Overseas Fellow of the KNAW

ERC Narrative science project: https://www.narrative-science.org
Keynes Lecture https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications/what-if-models-fact-and-fiction-economics
Leverhulme Trust / ESRC funded “The Nature of Evidence: How well do ‘facts’ travel?”


-----Original Message-----
From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Luca Fiorito
Sent: 24 January 2019 20:30
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] History of the term "moral hazard"

To my knowledge one of the first explicit discussions of "moral hazard" by an economist is to be found in Risk as an Economic Factor John Haynes The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Jul., 1895), pp. 409-449 As you crrectly state, Haynes writes: Lack of moral character gives rise to a class of risks known by insurance men as moral hazard.
LF



Frank Howland <[log in to unmask]> ha scritto:

> Dear Shoe list members,
>
>
> I'm interested in learning more about the history of the term "moral 
> hazard".  I believe the term has its origins in insurance in the 19th 
> century where it had a distinctly pejorative meaning but that it in 
> economics it has come to reflect people behaving in a rational fashion 
> with no normative implications.  A classic article is Pauly
> (1968) "The Economics of Moral Hazard: Comment" American Economic 
> Review.  Pauly says: "the response of seeking more medical care with 
> insurance than in its absence is a result not of moral perfidy, but of 
> rational economic behavior." (p. 535)
>
>
> Can anyone point me to helpful references in the history of thought 
> literature?
>
>
> Thank you very much in advance,
>
>
> Frank
>
>
>
> Frank Howland
> Department of Economics
> Wabash College
> 765-361-6317
> [log in to unmask]

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