It is the purpose of this note to appraise the relevance of the point made by Gérard Pelletier in his "L'Entrepreneur dans la pensée économique : l’originalité méconnue de Turgot" (L’Actualité économique, vol. 66, June 1990) that Turgot developed an original theory of the...

<italic>This paper traces interpersonal utility comparisons and bargaining in the work of John Harsanyi from the 1950s to the mid-1960s. As his preoccupation with how theorists can obtain information about agents moved from an approach centered on empathetic understanding to the more distanced...</italic>

While deriving their explanation of positive utility interdependence from Edgeworth's presupposition that concern for others' welfare varies with the 'social distance' between individuals, economic theorists have overlooked both Smith's idea that sympathy can also develop on the basis of empathy...