COURNOT, ANTOINE-AUGUSTIN

born Aug. 28, 1801, Gray, Fr. died March 31, 1877, Paris French economist and mathematician, a pioneer in mathematical economics. Cournot was the first economist who, with a competent knowledge of both subjects, endeavoured to apply mathematics to the treatment of economic questions. His main work in economics is Recherches sur les principes mathmatiques de la thorie des richesses (1838; Researches Into the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth). He was concerned primarily with an analysis of partial market equilibrium based on the assumption that participants in the process of exchange are either producers or merchants whose end is the maximization of profit. He therefore ignored the concept of utility. His most important contributions were his discussions of supply-and-demand functions and of the establishment of equilibrium under conditions of monopoly, duopoly, and perfect competition; his analysis of the shifting of taxes, which he treated as changes in the cost of production; and his discussion of problems of international trade.