Pareto was an Italian economist who lived from 1848 to 1923. He argued that an individual's preferences were
the beginning pointof economic analysis, and only ordinal and not
cardinal payoffs were important. Keeping with this, he developed the notion of
a Pareto optimal outcome in which no member of society can be made better off without
hurting, or decreasing the payoffs of someone else.
updated: 12 August 2005
HOW TO CITE THIS ENTRY
- To learn more:
- Try the normal-form game solver to automatically calculate equilibria on the applets page.
- Take an online quiz on finding equilibria in games.