William Stanley Jevons biography. British economist ...
William Stanley Jevons
| British economist, statistician and professor of logic and philosophy. Date of Birth: Country: Great Britain |
Biography of William Stanley Jevons
William Stanley Jevons was a British economist, statistician, and professor of logic and philosophy.
William stanley jevons biography examples William Stanley Jevons was a British economist, statistician, and professor of logic and philosophy. He was born on September 1, , in Liverpool, UK. His father, Thomas Jevons, was a prosperous iron merchant with a strong interest in science and writing on legal and economic topics. His mother was the daughter of renowned botanist and historian William Roscoe. At the age of 15, Jevons was sent to the University College School in London to further his education.He was born on September 1, , in Liverpool, UK. His father, Thomas Jevons, was a prosperous iron merchant with a strong interest in science and writing on legal and economic topics. His mother was the daughter of renowned botanist and historian William Roscoe.
At the age of 15, Jevons was sent to the University College School in London to further his education.
It was during this time that he developed a strong belief in his ability to become a great thinker, which influenced his entire life. In , after spending two years at the University College School, Jevons unexpectedly received an offer to work as an assayer at a new mint in Australia. Despite his reluctance to leave the UK, financial considerations outweighed his reservations, as his family was in dire need of money due to his father's business failure in In June , Jevons left Britain and spent the next five years in Sydney.
By the end of his time in Australia, Jevons resigned from his position and returned to London in He enrolled at University College London (UCL) and eventually obtained a bachelor's and master's degree from the University of London.
While focusing on humanities during this period, Jevons never lost his interest in the natural sciences.
Carl menger View three larger pictures. Thomas Jevons was an iron merchant but showed lots of talent both as an inventor of iron boats and as a writer on various legal and economic topics. Mary Anne Roscoe was the daughter of the historian William Roscoe. Thomas and Mary Roscoe had eleven children and Stanley was the ninth. The family were Unitarians, a liberal branch of the Protestant Church that bases its religious beliefs on reason, and Stanley was brought up with these beliefs.Throughout his life, he continued to work on scientific topics, and his deep knowledge of the physical sciences greatly influenced the success of his major logical work, "The Principles of Science."
After receiving his master's degree, Jevons became a lecturer at Owens College in Manchester. In , he became a professor of logic, ethics, and philosophy, as well as a professor of political economy at Owens College.
The following year, he married Harriet Ann Taylor, whose father, John Edward Taylor, was the founder and owner of the "Manchester Guardian," a nationally recognized newspaper.
Although Jevons faced health issues, including insomnia, he found lecturing on a wide range of disciplines burdensome. In , he gladly accepted a position as a professor at University College London, leaving Owens College.
William stanley jevons economics 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. If it is not, then he or she can, with a given income, reallocate consumption and get more utility. 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.Travel and music became his main sources of entertainment, but his health continued to deteriorate, and he suffered from depression. In , feeling overwhelmed by the routine work and lacking energy, Jevons retired from his professorship.
On August 13, , he drowned while swimming near Hastings. Jevons' contributions to the development of the so-called marginalist revolution in late 19th-century economics earned him a reputation as a leading political economist and logician of his time.
His works, along with those of Carl Menger in Vienna in and Léon Walras in Switzerland in , marked the beginning of a new era in the history of economic thought. Among his notable works are "The Theory of Political Economy," "The Coal Question," and "The State in Relation to Labour."