Rationalizing Human Organization in an Uncertain World: Jacob Marschak, from Ukrainian Prisons to Behavioral Science Laboratories
揭示雅各布·马尔沙克在20世纪40-50年代的科学愿景，包括将经济学定义为理性选择科学、强调数学化与跨学科方法、视不确定性为社会环境主要特征，并主张经济学家应成为“社会工程师”。
Jacob Marschak (1898–1977) had an enormous impact on the development of postwar economics, both as an intellectual mentor of Nobel Prize winners such as Kenneth Arrow and Franco Modigliani and as forerunner and institutional organizer of several research programs, most famously at the Cowles Commission. Nevertheless, he remains understudied by historians. This article uncovers the salient characteristics of his scientific vision in the forties and fifties, at the apex of his influence on the profession: his definition of economics as the science of rational choice; his emphasis on mathematization, experimentation, and interdisciplinarity as the proper methodology; his view of uncertainty as the main characteristic of the social environment; and his claim that economists should be “social engineers.” The development of such a vision is studied against the background of Marschak's biography and of his understanding of the vicissitudes of the twentieth century, in particular his socialist beliefs and his repeated experience of emigration.