Profile Major Works Resources

Jack Hirshleifer, 1925-2005


UCLA economist, Jack Hirshleifer is one of the pioneeers of the application of theories of uncertainty and information in economics.   His earliest work was on investment theory, notably his "resurrection" of the Fisherian real theory of investment and interest (1958, 1970). He extended his analysis to include one of the earliest attempts to formalize a theory of investment under uncertainty in one of the earliest applications of Kenneth Arrow's  state-preference approach (1965, 1966).  He is also a pioneer of information theory, providing in his infamous 1971 piece the paradoxical result that too much information can actually reduce welfare.  He has continued to work on problems in uncertainty and information - particularly in explaining the term structure of interest rates and the role of liquidity and speculation. He has also worked on grafting the biological notion of "evolution" into Neoclassical economics.

 

  

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Major works of Jack Hirshleifer

  • "On the Theory of Optimal Investment Decision", 1958, JPE.
  • ['Sir Epicure Mammon'] "The Sumptuary Manifesto", 1959, JLaw Econ [pdf]
  • "The Bayesian Approach to Statistical Decision: An exposition", 1961, Journal of Business.
  • "Investment Decision Under Uncertainty: Choice-theoretic approaches", 1965, QJE.
  • "Investment Decision Under Uncertainty: Applications of the state-preference approach", 1966, QJE.
  • "A Note on Böhm-Bawerk/Wicksell Theory of Interest", 1967, RES.
  • Investment, Interest and Capital, 1970.
  • "The Private and Social Value of Information and the Reward to Inventive Activity", 1971, AER. [pdf]
  • "Liquidity, Uncertainty and the Accumulation of Information", 1972, in Carter and Ford, eds, Uncertainty and Expectation in Economics.
  • "Social Time Preference", 1972, [draft ucla]
  • "Exchange Theory: the missing chapter", 1973 [draft ucla]
  • "Where Are We in the Theory of Information?", 1973, AER. [draft ucla]
  • "Speculation and Equilibrium: Information, risk and markets", 1975, QJE. [draft ucla]
  • "The New Economics of Information", with J.G. Riley, 1976 [draft ucla]
  • "The Theory of Speculation Under Alternative Regimes of Markets", 1977, JFinance [draft ucla]
  • "Economics from a Biological Viewpoint", 1977, JLawE. [pdf] [draft ucla]
  • "Natural Economy versus Political Economy", 1978, J of Social and Biological Structures [draft ucla]
  • "The Analytics of Uncertainty and Information: An expository survey", with J.G. Riley, 1979, JEL.
  • "Evolutionary Models in Economics and Law: cooperation and conflict strategies", 1980 [draft ucla]
  • Price Theory and Applications, 1980.
  • Economic Behavior in Adversity, 1988
  • The Analytics of Uncertainty and Information, with J.G.Riley, 1992.
  • "The Legal Battle: Application of Warfare Models to Litigation", 1998
  • "Bioeconomic causes of War", 1998 [wp]
  • The Dark Side of the Force: Economic Foundations of Conflict Theory, 2001 [intro pdf]

 

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Resources on Jack Hirshleifer

 

 
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