Pareto’s influence on modern economics

Abstract. Allais (1968) maintained that Pareto’s influence on the development of economics was felt only after considerable delay and was confined to Italy and France. This paper provides a reconstruction of the intellectual dissemination of Pareto’s thought through Europe and the United States in the period 1900-1940, showing that it was influential in the period from c.1900 to the mid-1920s and that in the 1930s it was highly important in the foundation of mainstream post-war economic theory, although in a more elusive way than before.