Latest addition to the Economics in the Rear-view Mirror Rare Book Reading Room: a link to the Latin original of Daniel Bernoulli’s paper for his solution to the St. Petersburg paradox.
From the English translator’s note: “I am also grateful to Mr. William J. Baumol, Professor of Economics, Princeton University, for his valuable assistance in interpreting Bernoulli’s paper in the light of modern econometrics”.
Visitors must drop down this page to the comments section to enjoy the material shared by Olav Bjerkholt that he found in the Econometrica files regarding the publication of the English translation of the Bernoulli paper. Fabulous stuff!
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1738
Bernoulli, Daniel. Specimen theoriae novae de mensura sortis, Commentarii academiae scientiarum imperialis Petropolitanae. Tomus V. St. Petersburg, 1738, pp. 175-192.
Repository: Natural History Museum Library, London.
German translation by Alfred Pringsheim with introduction by Ludwig Fick. Leipzig: Duncker & Mumblot, 1896.
English translation (link requires access to jstor) by Dr. Louise Sommer published as “Exposition of a New Theory on the Measurement of Risk” in Econometrica, Vol. 22, No. 1 (January, 1954), pp. 23-36.
Image Source: New York City Public Library Reading Room, ca. 1911. From Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.