Background
Bergson, Abram was born on April 21, 1914 in Baltimore. Son of Issac Burk and Sophia (Rabinovich) Bergson.
( Abram Bergson has been making significant contributions...)
Abram Bergson has been making significant contributions to economic theory since the 1930s, and this selection of fifteen of his most influential essays exhibits in large part the breadth of his range. The book's primary focus, however, is on those aspects of economic theory to which he has given sustained attention over the whole course of his career: welfare and socialist economics.Part I, Social Welfare and the Economic Optimum, presents the author's seminal early article on the concept of social welfare and two additional essays on the relation of social choice theory to welfare economics and on the import of taste differences for optimal income distribution.In Part II, Problems of Measurement, the critique of Frisch's methods of marginal utility measurement that has become a classic is followed by three essays on consumer's surplus analysis, including the frequently cited paper on monopoly welfare losses. A final paper elaborates for factor productivity calculation the index number theory that was developed by Moorsteen and the author for output measurement.In Part III, Public Enterprise and Socialist Economics, two surveys of the theory of socialist economics that are standard references in the field are followed by an essay on the politics of socialist efficiency and by two studies of public enterprise, one on optimal pricing and the other on managerial riskbearing.Finally, Part IV, Prices, Income, and Employment, consists of two papers that represent an early effort to integrate macro- and microeconomics, a matter that has since become of wide interest.Abram Bergson has taught at Harvard University since 1956; he is now George F. Baker Professor of Economics.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262523906/?tag=2022091-20
(Abram Bergson has been making significant contributions t...)
Abram Bergson has been making significant contributions to economic theory since the 1930s, and this selection of fifteen of his most influential essays exhibits in large part the breadth of his range. The book's primary focus, however, is on those aspects of economic theory to which he has given sustained attention over the whole course of his career: welfare and socialist economics. Part I, Social Welfare and the Economic Optimum, presents the author's seminal early article on the concept of social welfare and two additional essays on the relation of social choice theory to welfare economics and on the import of taste differences for optimal income distribution. In Part II, Problems of Measurement, the critique of Frisch's methods of marginal utility measurement that has become a classic is followed by three essays on consumer's surplus analysis, including the frequently cited paper on monopoly welfare losses. A final paper elaborates for factor productivity calculation the index number theory that was developed by Moorsteen and the author for output measurement. In Part III, Public Enterprise and Socialist Economics, two surveys of the theory of socialist economics that are standard references in the field are followed by an essay on the politics of socialist efficiency and by two studies of public enterprise, one on optimal pricing and the other on managerial riskbearing. Finally, Part IV, Prices, Income, and Employment, consists of two papers that represent an early effort to integrate macro- and microeconomics, a matter that has since become of wide interest. Abram Bergson has taught at Harvard University since 1956; he is now George F. Baker Professor of Economics.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262021757/?tag=2022091-20
(Soviet Union -- Economic policy -- 1959-1965. Industrial ...)
Soviet Union -- Economic policy -- 1959-1965. Industrial management -- Soviet Union. Planejamento Economico. Economische planning. Gestion d'entreprise -- URSS. URSS -- Politique économique -- 1959-1965. Wirtschaftsplanung Sowjetunion Politique industrielle -- URSS -- 1945-1970.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000PY8OGS/?tag=2022091-20
Bergson, Abram was born on April 21, 1914 in Baltimore. Son of Issac Burk and Sophia (Rabinovich) Bergson.
AB, Johns Hopkins University, 1933. Doctor of Philosophy, Harvard University, 1940. Doctor of Laws, University Windsor, 1979.
Doctor of Hebrew Literature, Brandeis University, 1985.
Assistant Professor of Economics, University Texas, 1940-1942. Chief Economics Subdivision, United States Office Strategic Services, 1942-1945. Member, American Reparations Delegation, Moscow, 1945.
Assistant Professor, Association Professor, Professor of Economics, Columbia University, 1946-1956. Professor of Economics, Harvard University, 1956-1970. Consultant, RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, California, since 1948.
Board of Directors, United States Social Science Research Council, United Kingdom or United States of America, 1962-1968. Member, Chairman, Social Science Advisory Board, United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, 1966-1973, 1971-1973. Chairman, Advisory Committee National Income Estimates, World Bank, 1983.
George F. Baker Professor of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America, since 1971. Editorial Boards, Slavic and E. European Review, Journal of Economic Literature, Journal of Comparative Economics, Social Choice and Welfare. Honorary ed., Soviet Economy.
( Abram Bergson has been making significant contributions...)
(Abram Bergson has been making significant contributions t...)
(Soviet Union -- Economic policy -- 1959-1965. Industrial ...)
(Book by Bergson, Abram)
(Book by Bergson, Abram)
Author: Structure of Soviet Wages, 1944, Economics of Soviet Planning, 1964, Essays in Normative Economics, 1966, Planning and Productivity under Soviet Socialism, 1968, Productivity and the Social System, 1978, Welfare, Planning, and Employment, 1982, Planning and Performance in Socialist Economies, 1989. Controller to books, articles to professional economic journals. Co-editor: Economic Trends in the Soviet Union, 1963, The Soviet Economy: Toward the Year 2000, 1983.
Welfare Economics: An early (1936, reprinted 1966,
1982) article analysed the implications, for the individual’s indifference map and utility function, of the conditions that Ragnar Frisch imposed in order to measure utility. A utility function of the sort since referred to as CES emerged, and some of its properties were delineated. Another essay, also early (1938, reprinted 1966,1982) introduced the concept of a social welfare function into welfare economics, and used it in order to make explicit the value premises underlying different formulations.
More recently (1973,1979 and 1980, all reprinted 1982), a series of essays sought to clarify consumers’ and producers’ surplus in a general equilibrium context,
and presented on that basis an alternative to the widely-held view of the unimportance of monopoly welfare losses.
Socialist planning theory and public enterprise pricing: Two essays (1948, reprinted 1966, 1982. 1967, reprinted 1982) surveying theoretic literature on socialist planning, among other things, considered at an early stage the possibility that incentives of enterprise managers could result in inefficient actions. Two subsequent (1972, reprinted 1982.
1978, reprinted 1982) essays deal with public enterprise: one re-examining the question of the second-best optimum price for a public enterprise and the other exploring how to reward public enterprise management in order to induce it to take an appropriate attitude towards risk.
Comparative systems: An early (1944) monograph represents an effort to clarify the principles of relative wage determination in the USSR. Another volume (1961) brought to a conclusion over a decade of research by myself and others attempting systematically to compile measures of Soviet real national income that conform to Western national income methodology. More recently, a short volume (1968) and a number of essays (reprinted 1978) seek to clarify the ‘static’ and ‘dynamic’ efficiency of the Soviet and East European economies. The Soviet planning process is also examined from the standpoint of efficiency in my Economics of Soviet Planning (1964).
Staff, Office of Strategic Services, Washington, D.C., then Chief, Russian Economics Subdiv. 1944-1945; American Reparations Delegate Moscow 1945, Social Science Advisory Board, United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency 1966-1973. National Academy, of Sciences, American Philosophical Society.
Council, Institute Economics Association 1974-1977.
Married Rita S. Macht, November 5, 1939. Children: Judith, Emily, Lucy.