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Date: | Fri Mar 31 17:18:22 2006 |
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===================== HES POSTING ====================
I'd like to second Bruce Caldwell's suggestion that the term "incentive" is
a
fairly recent addition to the economics vocabulary and that it is related
to the
economics of socialism.
When I was first looking into the calculation debates, I came across an
article written by Oskar Lange after he had returned to Poland. In it, he
acknowledged that Hayek had a point about getting workers and managers
in socialist firms to do what was expected of them. I believe he used the
word "incentives" in that article to describe what was necessary for
efficient
socialist management. That was a little before Hurcwitz starting writing
about
"incentive compatible systems." I am sorry to be so hazy about the article
or
the date, but I can't find it in my files. I believe it was around 1960
give or
take a few years. At any rate, whether or not Lange was the first to use
the
term, I do think its introduction is linked to the economics of socialism.
Karen Vaughn
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