An interview with Paul Samuelson: welfare economics, “old” and “new”, and social choice theory
An interview with Paul Samuelson: welfare economics, “old” and “new”, and social choice theory
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DOI：
10.1007/s00355-005-0007-9
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发表时间：
2005-12
影响因子：
0.9
通讯作者：
K. Suzumura
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
K. Suzumura
《社会选择与福利》杂志有采访福利经济学和社会选择理论先驱贡献者的传统，以保留他们对其开创性工作形成阶段的回忆，他们对过去和现在艺术状态的当前看法，以及他们对规范经济学这一分支所追求的议程的看法。长期以来，保罗·萨缪尔森教授一直是我们要采访的潜在学者之一，因为他对经济学，尤其是福利经济学理论做出了巨大的贡献。事实上，除非我们能够采访一位学者，他“在1938年之前就了解福利经济学的所有相关文献，只是无法对其进行连贯的理解”，并且愿意“以只有活着的证人和参与者才能做到的方式澄清事实”（萨缪尔森（Samuelson, 1981, p. 223）），否则这些访谈的目的就无法实现。2000年11月至12月，对萨缪尔森教授迟来的采访终于在他麻省理工学院的办公室里进行了。从我事先提交给他的初步问题清单开始。不用说，他还有很多话要讲，这使这次谈话丰富多彩。为了方便读者更好地理解萨缪尔森教授所提供的丰富信息，我添加了一些脚注，并提供了一份广泛的参考书目，以便将萨缪尔森教授的回忆与读者所了解的联系起来。我非常感谢保罗·萨缪尔森教授，他的友好合作和慷慨牺牲了他的时间，使这次采访成为可能。还要感谢Kenneth Arrow教授、Marc Fleurbaey教授、Peter Hammond教授、Prasanta Pattanaik教授、Maurice Salles教授和Amartya Sen教授，多年来我与他们就本次采访中讨论的主题进行了多次对话。我非常感谢Nick Baigent教授，他亲切地阅读了本文的几份草稿，并给了我详细的评论，从而改进了内容，并对最终稿进行了阐述。不用说，除了我之外，没有人应该对最终结果的任何缺陷负责。
Social Choice and Welfare has a tradition of interviewing pioneering contributors to welfare economics and social choice theory to keep their recollections on the formative stages of their seminal work, their current views on the past and present states of the art, and their perspectives on the agendas to be pursued in this branch of normative economics officially on record. Professor Paul Samuelson has been on the list of potential scholars to be interviewed for a long time in view of his enormously influential contributions to economics in general, and theoretical welfare economics in particular. Indeed, the purpose of these interviews would not be served unless and until we could interview a scholar “who before 1938 knew all the relevant literature on welfare economics and just could not make coherent sense of it,” and is willing “to set the record straight as only a living witness and participant can (Samuelson (1981, p. 223)).” In November–December 2000, this long overdue interview with Professor Samuelson finally took place in his office at MIT. It started from the list of preliminary questions I had submitted to him beforehand. Needless to say, he had much more to offer, which coloured and enriched this interview. To facilitate the readers’ better appreciation of the rich information provided by Professor Samuelson, I added a few footnotes and provided an extensive list of references so as to link Professor Samuelson’s recollections with what the readersI am most grateful to Professor Paul Samuelson whose kind collaboration and generous sacrifice of his time made this interview possible. Thanks are also due to Professors Kenneth Arrow, Marc Fleurbaey, Peter Hammond, Prasanta Pattanaik, Maurice Salles and Amartya Sen, with whom I had many conversations over the years relating to the subjects discussed in this interview. My deep gratitude goes to Professor Nick Baigent who kindly read several drafts of this paper and gave me detailed comments which led to the improvement of substance as well as exposition of the final draft. Needless to say, nobody other than myself should be held responsible for any remaining deficiency of the eventual outcome.