Mathematical Economics in Italy in the twentieth Century: From Center to Periphery

Pareto’s personality had a great influence on the evolution of economic theory in the last century, at least in the Italian context. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a small but combative circle of followers aimed to defend and spread the new Paretian approach based on the idea of general economic equilibrium. Paretian scholars are very recognizable in the Italian context for their contributions to mathematical and statistical aspects. The purpose of this paper is to outline the essential features of the Italian Paretian school in the field of pure economics, or, as we would say today, of mathematical economics. This favorable position of the Italian tradition in the field of mathematical economics was basically due to two circumstances. The first was represented by the legacy of Pareto and his school, while the second was to be found in the fact that, among the students of Pareto, there was a pure mathematician of great value, Luigi Amoroso. We also see that an important voice, even if poorly valued, was that of Bruno de Finetti, who published a remarkable series of articles on mathematical economics in the second half of the 1930s. After World War II, the Paretian tradition in this field weakened considerably and ef fectively disappeared internationally.