jevons origin and theory of value

WILLIAM STANLEY JEVONS

Born in Liverpool, England, Jevons studied chemistry and botany at University College, London. Because of the Bankruptcy of his father’s business in 1847, Jevons left school to take up the position of assayer at the Mint in Sydney, Australia. He remained there five years, resuming his studies at University College on his return to England. He was later appointed to the post of chair in political economy at his alma mater and retired from there in 1880. Two years later, with a number of unfinished books in process, Jevons drowned while swimming. He was forty-six.

THEORY OF VALUE

The theory held that the utility (value) of each additional unit of a commodity—the marginal utility—is less and less to the consumer. When you are thirsty, for example, you get great utility from a glass of water. Once your thirst is quenched, the second and third glasses are less and less appealing. Feeling waterlogged, you will eventually refuse water altogether. “Value,” said Jevons, “depends entirely upon utility.”

This statement marked a significant departure from the classical theory of value, which stated that value derived from the labor used to produce a product or from the cost of production more generally. Thus began the neoclassical school, which is still the dominant one in economics today.

Jevons went on to define the “equation of exchange,” which shows that for a consumer to be maximizing his or her utility, the ratio of the marginal utility of each item consumed to its price must be equal. If it is not, then he or she can, with a given income, reallocate consumption and get more utility.

Take, for example, a consumer whose marginal utility from oranges is 10 “utils,” and from cookies 4 utils, when oranges and cookies are both priced at $.50 each. The consumer’s ratio of marginal utility to price for oranges is 10/$.50, or 20, and for cookies is 4/$.50, or 8. Jevons would have said (and modern economists would agree) that this does not satisfy the equation of exchange, and therefore the consumer will change purchases. Specifically, the consumer could increase utility by spending $.50 less on cookies and using the money to buy oranges. He would lose 4 utils on the cookies, but gain 10 on the oranges, for a net gain of 6 utils. He will have this incentive to reallocate purchases until the equation of exchange holds (i.e., until the marginal utility of oranges falls and the marginal utility of cookies rises to a point where, as a ratio to their prices, they are equal).


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