On eponymy in economics.

• Author: Cole, Julio H.

There is no spiritual copyright in scientific discoveries, unless they should happen to be quite mistaken. Only in making a blunder does a scientist do something which, conceivably, no one else might ever do again.

--Peter Medawar, The Strange Case of the Spotted Mice

It takes an economist to read an economist.

--George J. Stigler, The Economist as Preacher

Though most economists are probably not familiar with the word eponymy, the concept to which it relates is a common and well-known practice--namely, "affixing the name of the scientist to all or part of what he has found" (Merton 1973, 298). To be sure, other disciplines are much more eponymy prone than is economics. Medicine, for instance--where someone's name becomes routinely attached to practically every organ, disease, or procedure--seems positively addicted to the practice. Mathematicians, for their part, have turned it into an art form (which is easily verified by examining the table of contents of any recent mathematics journal). (1)

Eponymy, of course, is not limited to scientific and scholarly activity, but is a common feature of everyday language--and a very ancient one, too, as attested to by the many rivers, towns, cities, and even countries named after persons (real or mythical). In the case of place names, the role of eponymy is somewhat akin to its role in science because the original intention is usually honorific. In most cases, however, eponymy in everyday life serves an essentially practical purpose, which is to provide a convenient shorthand expression that allows us to refer to objects or actions that would otherwise require cumbersome description or tedious repetition. Though the eponymic expression may have originated with an honorific intention, this original intent often fades from memory through frequent and casual use, and the expression stays in use while its users remain ignorant (and unconcerned) about who its eponym might be. Nor does this lapse matter much; for practical purposes, an effective eponymic expression requires only that most people know what it means, regardless of whether they know for whom who it was named. That Bolivia is named after Simon Bolivar is one of those things that are "nice to know," but who needs that information? And who knows if "Tom Collins" really existed? Who cares? "Bloody Mary" was a real person, but how many people know that fact, and does it matter?

In economics, the Laspeyres price index is a good example of this phenomenon. According to Joseph Schumpeter, "a student can no more go through any complete training in economics without hearing of Laspeyres than he can without hearing of A. Smith" (1954, 1093n.). This statement is true, but also a bit misleading. Any decent economist must know who Adam Smith was, whereas very few economists nowadays know anything at all about Etienne Laspeyres (1834-1913) except that a widely used index-number formula happens to carry his name. For better or worse, Laspeyres now belongs to the "Tom Collins" class of eponyms: the concept is remembered, not the person.

In science, though the honorific purpose for eponymy plays a much larger role, the practical purpose is exactly analogous to that in everyday life. As Robert Merton puts it, "Eponymy [in science] is thus at once a mnemonic and a commemorative device" (1973, 273). Moreover, these two purposes need not be compatible, and in fact they may often conflict. Because the practical purpose of eponymy is to communicate ideas efficiently, useful eponymy requires only that the eponymic expression have a commonly accepted meaning. This requirement applies in everyday life just as it does in science. The potential conflict between "practical" and "honorific" eponymy arises from the fact that the former requires only general agreement on what concept corresponds to any given eponymic expression, whereas the latter requires, in addition, historical accuracy: ideally, we should want each concept to be eponymically related to its "true" originator, creator, or discoverer. Unfortunately, although strict "eponymic justice" is much to be desired (for its own sake, if for nothing else), we have it on good authority that such an aspiration is in fact a chimera. According to Stigler's Law of Eponymy, "no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer" (S. Stigler 1999, 277). Though one might question the empirical basis for this depressing proposition (surely it cannot always be literally true), it does appear to have some basis in fact. Sadly, it is indeed the case that practical eponymy all too often departs, unfairly, from historical accuracy. (2)

It is not altogether clear what, if anything, should be done about this disconnect. Though the wounded pride of frustrated potential eponyms is not to be taken lightly, in the grand scheme of things not much damage is done by eponymic inaccuracy, as long as the practical function of eponymy is not impaired. Again, the Laspeyres index is a perfect example. It is a well-defined concept, now and forever linked by common usage to the name of Etienne Laspeyres, and that is that. Whether this gentleman was actually the concept's "true" inventor is a moot question of no consequence. Indeed, even if it happened that someone else actually invented the concept, to start calling it by the name of its "true" inventor at this point would be a pedantic exercise in futility, and anyone who stubbornly insisted on doing so would be considered silly (if not insane). Through time, the eponym that becomes attached to any given scientific concept will be determined by common usage in actual scholarly communication, regardless of historical accuracy and whether we like it or not. (3)

What can impair the practical usefulness of eponymy in science is the sheer proliferation of eponymic expressions. If eponymy's practical purpose is to facilitate communication via the coining of mnemonic expressions, then obviously this communication device will be less efficient the smaller the number of people who know what any given expression means. A mnemonic, if I may be pardoned a tautology, is useful only when we actually remember what it means. Uselessness arises, however, when the number of eponymic expressions "out there" grows beyond a certain point.

Which brings me, finally, to the subject of this review. Although, as mentioned previously, economists are still rank amateurs compared to the practitioners of more eponymically sophisticated disciplines, such as medicine and mathematics, we have nonetheless contributed our fair share to the world's stock of scientific concepts, and we have not been shy about labeling many of them eponymously. The proof is the wonderful book An Eponymous Dictionary of Economics: A Guide to Laws and...