Risk, Uncertainty and Profit |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
actual amount assume assumption capital Carl Menger chapter character classical economic classical economists commodity conduct connection consume consumption cost course degree depends diminishing returns discussion distribution ditions duction ductive economic theory effect element enterprise entrepreneur equal equilibrium estimate exchange fact factors freedom of contract function fundamental future human important income increase individual industry interest investment involved J. S. Mill judgment knowledge labor large number less limited matter means measurable uncertainties ment merely method monopoly moral hazard motives nature nomic operations organization owner perfect competition persons physical possible practical present principle principle of indifference probability problem productive agencies productive services Professor profit progress question referred relation rent result risk sense separate situation social society sort static sumption supply tendency theoretical things timate tion uncertainty utility wages wants wealth
Popular passages
Page 163 - With human nature as we know it it would be impracticable or very unusual for one man to guarantee to another a definite result of the latter's actions without being given power to direct his work.
Page 163 - With uncertainty present doing things, the actual execution of activity, becomes in a real sense a secondary part of life; the primary problem or function is deciding what to do and how to do it.38 This fact of uncertainty brings about the two most important characteristics of social organisation.
Page 139 - The practical difference between the two categories, risk and uncertainty, is that in the former the distribution of the outcome in a group of instances is known (either through calculation...
Page 33 - ... perfect mobility" in all economic adjustments, no cost involved in movements or changes. To realize this ideal all the elements entering into economic calculations — effort, commodities, etc. — must be continuously variable, divisible without limit.
Page xxxix - risk" means in some cases a quantity susceptible of measurement, while at other times it is something distinctly not of this character...
Page 136 - Business decisions . . . deal with situations which are far too unique, generally speaking, for any sort of statistical tabulation to have any value for guidance. The conception of an objectively measurable probability or chance is simply inapplicable.
Page 127 - ... that neither logicians nor psychologists have shown much interest in them. Perhaps (the writer is inclined to this view) it is because there is really very little to say about the subject . . . when we try to decide what to expect in a certain situation, and how to behave ourselves accordingly, we are likely to do a lot of irrelevant mental rambling, and the first thing we know we find that we have made up our minds, that our course of action is settled. There seems to be very little meaning...
Page 61 - In so far as men act rationally — ie, from fixed motives subject to the law of diminishing utility — they will at a higher rate divide their time between wage-earning and non-industrial uses in such a way as to earn more money, indeed, but to work fewer hours.
Page 139 - ... it is impossible to form a group of instances, because the situation dealt with is in a high degree unique (Knight, 1921, p.
Page 163 - Professor Knight says that we can imagine this adjustment as being "the result of a long process of experimentation worked out by trial-anderror methods alone," while it is not necessary "to imagine every worker doing exactly the right thing at the right time in a sort of 'pre-established harmony' with the work of others. There might be managers, superintendents, etc., for the purpose of co-ordinating the activities of individuals...