Profile Major Works Resources

Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz, 1868-1931.

Russian statistician and economist, who worked in Germany for much of his career.

Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz was born and raised in St. Petersburg, Russia, from a family of Russian nobles of Polish descent.  His father, a military man, taught at the local artillery school.

Bortkiewicz and studied at the university of St. Petersburg until 1890, subsequently producing a thesis in  mathematical statistics for the academy of national economy.. Borkiewicz proceeded to continue his studies abroad, spending 1891 in Strasbourg and 1892 in Göttingen (producing his dissertation on the statistics of life-expectancy), before going on to Vienna and Leipzig.   He was appointed as a lecturer (privatdozent) at the University of Strasbourg in 1895 until 1897, when he returned to St. Petersburg to take up a job with a railway company.  But Bortkiewicz didn't last long outside academia.  In 1901, he returned to Germany, and became professor of statistics and political economy at the University of Berlin (full professor after 1920) until his death in 1931.

While still a student, Borktiewicz reviewed Leon Walras's work, and became an eminent advocate of mathematical economics.  However, his theoretical proclivities were more in the "Classical" Ricardian vein  Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz's main claim to fame is for his work on Karl Marx -  whom he simply saw as one descendant of Ricardo, setting aside his revolutionary reputation.  Bortkiewicz's solution to the Marx's "Transformation Problem" (1907) is considered legendary, although it was ignored at the time. Bortkiewicz was also involved in other theoretical controversies - particularly against Böhm-Bawerk and the Austrian theory of interest and also against Alfred Weber's theory of industrial location.   Bortkiewicz also produced several notable works on mathematical statistics (e.g. 1898, 1917), and is sometimes credited as a co-discoverer (certainly a popularizer) of the Poisson distribution.

Although he taught in Berlin most of his life, Bortkiewicz was nonetheless opposed to the German Historical School and was more sympathetic to the mathematical efforts of the Lausanne School.  Wassily Leontief was among his students.  

 

  

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Major works of Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz

  • "Review of Léon Walras, Éléments d'économie politique pure, 2e édit.", 1890, Revue d'économie politique (also PDF version)
  • Die Mittlere Lebensdauer: Die Methoden ihrer Bestimmung und ihr Verhältnis zur Sterblichkeitsmessung, 1892 [bk]
  • "Kritische Betrachtungen zur theoretischen Statistik", 1894-96, JNS, three parts: 1894 (v.8): Pt.1 (p.641-80). 1895 (v.10): Pt. 2 (p.321-60), 1896 (v.11): Pt. 3 (p.671-705)
  • Das Gesetz der kleinen Zahlen, 1898 [bk]
  • "Über versicherungsmathematischen unterricht an den Universitäten", 1904,  Proceedings of Fourth International Congress of Actuaries, p.743
  • "War Aristoteles Malthusianer?", 1906, ZGS, p.383
  • "Der Kardinalfehler der Böhm-Bawerkischen Zinstheorie", 1906,  Schmollers Jarbuch für Gesetzbegung Verwaltung und Volkswirtschaft, vol. 30 (2), p.61-90
  • "Wertrechnung und Presirechnung im Marxschen System", 1906-07, Archiv fur Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik,  three parts: vol. 23 (1906) Pt. 1 (p.1-50) vol. 25 (1907), Pt 2 (p.10-51) , Pt. 3 (p.445-88)
  • "Zur Berichtigung der grundlegenden theoretischen Konstruktion von Marx in dritten Band des Kapital", 1907 JNS, (July), p.319-35 [Eng trans. Sweezy, 1947  "On the Correction of Marx's Fundamental Theoretical Construction in the Third Volume of Capital", Karl Marx and Close of his System ]
  • "Wie Leibniz die Diskontierungsformel begründete", 1907, in Festgaben für Wilhelm Lexis, p.59 [av]
  • "La legge del piccoli numeri", 1908, GdE p.415
  • "Die statistischen Generalisationen", 1909, Scientia.
  • "Die Rodbertus'sche Grundrententheorie und die Marx'sche Lehre von der absoluten Grundrente", 1911, Archiv für die Geschichte des Sozialismus und der Arbeiterbewegung, v. 1, Pt. 1 (p.1-40, av); v.2 , Pt. 2 (p.391-434, av)  ["Berichtigung", 1912, v.2, p.188 [av]]
  • Die Iterationen. Ein beitrag zur wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie, 1917 [bk] [cor]
  •  "Das währgunspolitische Programme Otto Henns"  1918, SchmJGVV,  (v.42.2) p.785 [av]
  • "Zur Probleme die Lohnbemessung", 1920, SchmJGVV, p.1001 [av]
  • "Zu den Grundrenten theorien von Rodbertus und Marz", 1919, Archiv für die Geschichte des Sozialismus und der Arbeiterbewegung, v. 8 p.248-57.
  • "Value and Price in the Marxian System", 1952, IEP [pdf]
HET

 
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Resources on Ladislaus Bortkiewicz

 

 
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