ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: “Our Daily Bread”: Maurice Potron, From Catholicism To Mathematical Economics
Author:
Maurice Potron (1872-1942) is a French Jesuit and mathematician whose main source of inspiration in economics is the encyclical Rerum Novarum. With virtually no knowledge in economic theory, he wrote down a linear model of production in which he formalized the notions of just prices and just wages. As soon as 1911, he used the Perron-Frobenius theorem to prove the existence of a positive solution and established a duality result between the quantity side and the price side of the model. He returned to economics in the 1930s, but in both periods he failed to make a lasting impression upon economists. In our paper we examine the life and work of Maurice Potron, study the theoretical aspects of his model and its implications for the social and economic organization, and briefly criticize his model. We explore the full range of his economic publications and also make use of various archival sources.
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