Frank Knight
Frank Knight | |
|---|---|
Alvin S. Johnson | |
| Doctoral students | Milton Friedman George Stigler Charles E. Lindblom James M. Buchanan |
| Influences | Clarence Edwin Ayres John Bates Clark Herbert J. Davenport Max Weber |
| Contributions | Knightian uncertainty |
| Awards | Francis A. Walker Medal (1957) |
Frank Hyneman Knight (November 7, 1885 – April 15, 1972) was an American
Nobel laureates Milton Friedman, George Stigler and James M. Buchanan were all students of Knight at Chicago. Ronald Coase said that Knight, without teaching him, was a major influence on his thinking.[1] F.A. Hayek considered Knight to be one of the major figures in preserving and promoting classical liberal thought in the twentieth century.[2][3]
Paul Samuelson named Knight (along with Harry Gunnison Brown, Allyn Abbott Young, Henry Ludwell Moore, Wesley Clair Mitchell, Jacob Viner, and Henry Schultz) as one of the several "American saints in economics" born after 1860.[4]
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Life and career
Knight (
Knight is best known as the author of the book Risk, Uncertainty and Profit (1921), based on his
While most economists now acknowledge Knight's distinction between risk and uncertainty, the distinction has not resulted in much theoretical modelling or empirical work. However, the Knightian concept of uncertainty has been recognized in a variety of works: John Maynard Keynes discussed it at length in his Treatise on Probability; [7] Armen Alchian relied on it for discussing market behavior in his seminal paper Uncertainty, Evolution and Economic Theory; Paul Davidson incorporated it as an essential element in the
Knight also famously debated
Suppose that between two points there are two highways, one of which is broad enough to accommodate without crowding all the traffic which may care to use it, but is poorly graded and surfaced; while the other is a much better road, but narrow and quite limited in capacity. If a large number of trucks operate between the two termini and are free to choose either of the two routes, they will tend to distribute themselves between the roads in such proportions that the cost per unit of transportation, or effective returns per unit of investment, will be the same for every truck on both routes. As more trucks use the narrower and better road, congestion develops, until at a certain point it becomes equally profitable to use the broader but poorer highway.
Knight was a co-founder and vice president of the Mont Pelerin Society of like-minded economists.[8]
Knight was raised Christian, but later became an atheist.[9]
Notable works
- Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin Company. 1921. Retrieved 7 October 2023 – via Internet Archive.[10]
- The Economic Organization. New Brunswick (US) and London (UK): Transaction Publishers. 2013. ISBN 9781412851787.[10]
- The Ethics of Competition and Other Essays. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd. 1935.[10]
- Knight. F. H.; T.W. Merriam (1945). The Economic Order and Religion. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd. – via Internet Archive.[10]
- Freedom and Reform: Essays in economics and social philosophy. Port Washington, NY; London: Kennikat Press. 1947.
- On the History and Method of Economics: Selected essays. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1956. ISBN 978-0226446899..[10]
- Intelligence and Democratic Action. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 1960 – via Internet Archive.[10]
Awards
- 1957, Francis A. Walker Medal by the American Economic Association
- 1961, Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement[11]
References
- ISBN 978-1849806664.
- ^ Hayek, Friedrich A. (2012). "The Transmission of the Ideals of Freedom". Econ Journal Watch. 9 (2): 163–169.
- Hayek, F.A. (1967). "The Transmission of the Ideals of Economic Freedom". Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 198 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ Ryan, Christopher Keith (1985). "Harry Gunnison Brown: economist". Iowa State University. Retrieved 7 January 2019.
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-09-23. Retrieved 2019-12-20.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ISSN 1744-1374.
- ^ Keynes, John Maynard (1921). A Treatise on Probability. London: Macmillan.
- ISBN 978-1466886766.
- ISBN 978-0230603455. Frank Knight was the other leading member in the department when Friedman was a graduate student. Born in 1885, Knight hailed from a rural Christian background but early became an atheist.
- ^ OCLC 750831024.
- American Academy of Achievement.
Sources
- Burgin, Angus (November 2009). "The Radical Conservatism of Frank H. Knight," Modern Intellectual History, 6:513–538.
- Emmett, Ross B. (1999). "Introduction", in Selected Essays by Frank H. Knight, 2 vols. (ed. by Ross Emmett). [ISBN missing]
- Emmett, Ross B. (2009). "Did the Chicago School Reject Frank Knight?", in Frank Knight and the Chicago School in American Economics, ISBN 978-0415775007.
- Fonseca, Gonçalo L. "Frank H. Knight, 1885–1972". The History of Economic Thought Website. The New School for Social Research. Archived from the original on 2008-04-29. Retrieved 2008-05-07.
- Kasper, Sherryl (2002). The Revival of Laissez-Faire in American Macroeconomic Theory: A Case Study of Its Pioneers. ch. 2. [ISBN missing]
- Stigler, G. (1985). "Frank Hyneman Knight", University of Chicago Press – Center for the Study of the Economy and the State, Working Papers Series, Working Paper No. 37.
- White, Harrison C. (2002). Markets from Networks: Socioeconomic Models of Production. Princeton: Princeton University Press. [ISBN missing]
- Hands, D. Wade (2023). "Frank Knight and behavioral economics". The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought. 30 (3): 341–368. ISSN0967-2567.
External links
