Pasquale Boninsegni

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Pasquale Boninsegni, 1869-1939

Bologna-born Italian economist, follower of Pareto and his successor to his chair at the University of Lausanne.

Born to a modest family in Rimini, he studied mathematics at Bologna, obtaining his degree in 1894. Active in socialist causes during his student years, Boninsegni had repeated run-ins with the Italian authorities, and was placed under house arrest for some time. He would emerge as a leading activist of the PSI (Italian Socialist Party), and was involved in multiple organizing activities in the late 1890s, most notably mobilizing the peasantry in the Roman countryside. In 1899, he took over as editor of L'Asino, a leftist satirical magazine, for which he was sentenced again in 1900 for defamation. However, Boninsegni had already fled the country before the sentence could be carried out.

Boninsegni left Italy for Switzerland in 1900. Boninsegni made his way to Lausanne, where he met Vilfredo Pareto, who persuaded him to set aside his political activities and take up mathematical economics. Boninsengi became a close follower of Pareto's economics, and was an early propagator of the Paretian approach. He promptly entered into polemics with Uggo Gobbi in a series in the 1901 Giornale degli Economisti. Boninsegni's 1902 article (a review of Aupetit) may be the first to give a clear description of the Paretian choice theory, as an alternative to cardinal utility (divesting marginalism from its utilitarian overtones). His 1932 essay develops a compact model of general economic equilibrium based only upon the idea of transformation among goods.

Boninsegni succeeded Pareto as professor at the University of Lausanne in 1906, where he taught economics, as well as all the other social sciences, until his death in 1939. In 1928, he was promoted to "ordinary professor", and in 1929 became director of the school of social science at Lausanne.

In the 1920s, Boninsegni abandoned his socialist roots and embraced the fascist movement in Italy. He persuaded the University of Lausanne to grant an honorary degree for Benito Mussolni in 1937. Boninsegni was made Senator of Italy in 1939..

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Major Works of Pasquale Boninsegni

"Il principio della convenienza economica e la scienza della quantità", 1902, Giornale degli Economisti, v. 22 (May), p.470-84; "Reply to Gobbi" v. 23 (July), p.62-66, "Il concetto dell' importanza nell' economia pura", v.23 (July), p.75-77
"I sistema socialisti", 1903, Vita internazionale.
"I fondamenti dell' economica pura (A propositio di un libro del Sig. A. Aupetit), 1902, Giornale degli Economisti, vol. 24, p.106-133
"Un nuovo trattato d'economia matematica", 1903 GdE, v.26, p.327-37
"Tentativi di ricerca sulle funzioni di domanda e di offerta nel caso del baratto supposte le ofelimita elementari lineari", 1904, GdE, v.29, p.210-36
Précis d'économie politique, 1910
Traité d'économie politique, 1925 [1930 edition re-titled Manuel élémentaire d'économie politique]
"Bemerkungen zu gleichungen des wirtschaftlichen Gleichgewichtes", 1932, in H.Mayer, F.Fetter, R.Reisch, eds, Die Wirtschaftstheorie der Gegenwart.

HET

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Resources on de Passquale Boninsengi

"La Pagliuzza nell'occhio del fratello", by Ulisse Gobbi, 1901, GdE, v.23 (July), p.59-61 and "In difesa del principio della convenienza economica", GdE, v. 23 (July), [p.67-24]
Boninsegni at Centre Walras-Pareto
Boninsegni at Treccani.it
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