Antoine Augustin Cournot (; 28 August 180131 March 1877) was a French

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

and

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

who contributed to the development of

economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

Biography

Antoine Augustin Cournot was born on August 28, 1801 in

Gray, Haute-Saône Gray () is a commune in the Haute-Saône department, region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, eastern France. Geography Gray is situated on the banks of the river Saône. It is the last major town in Haute-Saône before the Saône flows into Côte-d ...

. He entered the preparatory school at Collège de Gray in 1809, where he studied until the age of 15. He later studied at Collège Royal de Besançon. In 1821, he entered one of the most prestigious

Grande école A (; ) is a specialized top-level educational institution in France and some other countries such as Morocco and Tunisia. are part of an alternative educational system that operates alongside the mainstream List of public universities in Franc ...

, the

École normale supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...

. According to

Agnar Sandmo Agnar Sandmo (9 January 1938 – 31 August 2019) was a Norwegian economist at the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH). He made a series of important contributions in the study of disparities, redistribution, insurance arrangements and tax systems ...

in 1823 he took a license degree in mathematics at Sorbonne University. He then became the private secretary of a field marshal who required assistance in writing his memoirs. This position left Cournot with considerable time for his own pursuits. In the course of his ten years in the field marshal's employment he took two doctoral degrees, one in mechanics and one in astronomy. In addition, he published a number of articles and even acquired a degree in law.

Subsequently, Cournot held positions as professor of mathematics, chief examiner for undergraduate students, and rector of Dijon Academy. By the time Cournot died in 1877, he was nearly blind.

Work

Economics

Cournot was mainly a mathematician, but had some influence in

. His theories on

monopolies A monopoly (from Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic competition to produce a particular thing, a lack of viable sub ...

and duopolies are still prevalent. In 1838 the book ''Researches on Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth'' was published, in which he used the application of the formulas and symbols of mathematics in economic analysis. This book was strongly criticized and scarcely successful during Cournot's lifetime. He attempted nonetheless to rewrite it twice. It is influential in economics today. Today many economists believe this book to be the point of departure for modern economic analysis. Cournot introduced the ideas of

function Function or functionality may refer to: Computing * Function key, a type of key on computer keyboards * Function model, a structured representation of processes in a system * Function object or functor or functionoid, a concept of object-orie ...

s and

probability Probability is a branch of mathematics and statistics concerning events and numerical descriptions of how likely they are to occur. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and 1; the larger the probability, the more likely an e ...

into economic analysis. He derived the first formula for the rule of

supply and demand In microeconomics, supply and demand is an economic model of price determination in a Market (economics), market. It postulates that, Ceteris_paribus#Applications, holding all else equal, the unit price for a particular Good (economics), good ...

as a function of

price A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or compensation expected, required, or given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In some situations, especially when the product is a service rather than a ph ...

and was the first to draw supply and demand curves on a graph , anticipating the work of

Alfred Marshall Alfred Marshall (26 July 1842 – 13 July 1924) was an English economist and one of the most influential economists of his time. His book ''Principles of Economics (Marshall), Principles of Economics'' (1890) was the dominant economic textboo ...

by roughly thirty years. The

Cournot duopoly Cournot competition is an economic model used to describe an industry structure in which companies compete on the amount of output they will produce, which they decide on independently of each other and at the same time. It is named after Antoine A ...

model developed in his book also introduced the concept of a (pure strategy)

Nash equilibrium In game theory, the Nash equilibrium is the most commonly used solution concept for non-cooperative games. A Nash equilibrium is a situation where no player could gain by changing their own strategy (holding all other players' strategies fixed) ...

, the

reaction function In game theory, the best response is the strategy (or strategies) which produces the most favorable outcome for a player, taking other players' strategies as given. The concept of a best response is central to John Nash's best-known contribution ...

and best-response dynamics. Cournot believed that economists must utilize the tools of mathematics only to establish probable limits and to express less stable facts in more absolute terms. He further held that the practical uses of mathematics in economics do not necessarily involve strict numerical precision. In the field of economics he is best known for his work in the field of

oligopoly An oligopoly () is a market in which pricing control lies in the hands of a few sellers. As a result of their significant market power, firms in oligopolistic markets can influence prices through manipulating the supply function. Firms in ...

theory,

Cournot competition Cournot competition is an economic model used to describe an industry structure in which companies compete on the amount of output they will produce, which they decide on independently of each other and at the same time. It is named after Antoine ...

, which is named after him.

Philosophy

Cournot worked on

determinism Determinism is the Metaphysics, metaphysical view that all events within the universe (or multiverse) can occur only in one possible way. Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have developed from diverse and sometimes ov ...

(in physics) and

chance Chance may refer to: Mathematics * In mathematics, likelihood of something (by way of the likelihood function or probability density function) * ''Chance'' (statistics magazine) Places * Chance, Kentucky, US * Chance, Maryland, US * Chanc ...

. Unlike

Pierre-Simon de Laplace Pierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace (; ; 23 March 1749 – 5 March 1827) was a French polymath, a scholar whose work has been instrumental in the fields of physics, astronomy, mathematics, engineering, statistics, and philosophy. He summariz ...

, who thought that nothing happens by chance, and

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

, who thought that randomness and causality had nothing to do with each other, Cournot united the concepts, defining randomness as the encounter of two independent causal series.. This definition allows randomness even in perfectly deterministic events, and is used to generate random numbers by the combination of unrelated signals (for instance, temperature and sound).

References

External links

"Antoine Augustin Cournot" in ''New School Profiles''
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cournot, Antoine Augustin 1801 births 1877 deaths 19th-century French economists 19th-century French philosophers People from Gray, Haute-Saône 19th-century French mathematicians École Normale Supérieure alumni Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery Mathematical economists 19th-century French male writers