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On Fri, 10 Oct 1997 08:35:00 MST [log in to unmask] wrote: 
 
> Does anyone know when the term "utility" was first used in economics? Did its  
> use over time change (especially in the 19th Century and before (?)), and if  
> so, how and why?  
 
Misselden (1622) used the word, but as a synonym for usefulness,  
referring mainly to the usefulness of particular laws. Ferguson (1767)  
used it to mean happiness, which is getting closer. Adam Smith (1776),  
of course, was a bit closer to moden usage than Ferguson. (I have just  
used search facilities on a text archive to turn these up, in my case  
the Bristol archive http://www.ecn.bris.ac.uk/het/index.htm) 
 
Tony Brewer ([log in to unmask]) 
University of Bristol, Department of Economics 
 
 
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