ABSTRACT
Francis Y. Edgeworth was a strange mixture of talents: he was a classicist by training; a mathematician by inclination; an economist and statistician by exposure. His brilliant and more comprehensive writings on monopoly theory, taxation, and international trade are virtually excluded. This chapter discusses with fragments on resource allocation, an exhaustive analysis of the laws of return, and notes on borderline aspects of distribution theory. Edgeworth presents a subtle geometrical argument which indicates that while joint cost and decreasing cost are not identical, they are generally associated. Edgeworth's analysis of the laws of return is one of his most important contributions to economic theory. The true relation of distribution to exchange is beautifully presented. The chapter also discusses his orthodox treatment of the entrepreneur, land, labor, and capital. With his usual acumen, Edgeworth states in some of his earliest writings the kernel of the general marginal productivity theory.
