A Joyful Economist. Scitovsky’s Memoirs

Few economists choose to write memoirs, and of those who do most adopt the "logic of my contributions£ approach. Tibor Scitovsky, Hungarian-born theorist who spent most of his career at Stanford and Berkeley, instead left us unpublished recollections, many of his childhood, others bearing on his personal philosophy (and shift therein) - of teaching, of the role of economic theory, of its imperfections. By their nature these Memoirs give us glimpses into his nimble, original thinking, without being weighed down with considerations of priority, answering critics, and so on. The paper tries to capture this spirit, frequently in Scitovsky’s own words.

Keywords:psychology and economics, imperfect competition, skilled consumption, Tibor Scitovsky

Jel codes:B30, B31

• THE CULTURAL AND AESTHETIC ROOTS OFTHE JOYLESS ECONOMY Viviana Di Giovinazzo, in Journal of the History of Economic Thought /2022 pp.556
  DOI: 10.1017/S1053837221000493
• Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology Marina Bianchi, pp.139 (ISBN:978-1-78560-962-6)
• The Economics of Motivations: Tibor Scitovsky and Daniel Berlyne Marina Bianchi, in History of Political Economy /2016 pp.295
  DOI: 10.1215/00182702-3619322
• The Magic of Storytelling: How Curiosity and Aesthetic Preferences Work Marina Bianchi, in Economics 20140044/2014
  DOI: 10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2014-44
• The Economics of Happiness Maurizio Pugno, pp.157 (ISBN:978-3-030-15834-7)

Marina Bianchi, A Joyful Economist. Scitovsky’s Memoirs in "HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY" 2/2012, pp 57-73, DOI: 10.3280/SPE2012-002003