EXTREMELY RARE PRESENTATION/ASSOCIATION COPY OF THE THEORY AND MEASUREMENT OF DEMAND, INSCRIBED IN THE YEAR OF PUBLICATION FROM HENRY SCHULTZ TO HIS CLOSE FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE HAROLD HOTELLING JUST FOUR MONTHS PRIOR TO SCHULTZ’S TRAGIC DEATH

SCHULTZ, Henry. The Theory and Measurement of Demand. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, (1938). Large octavo, original blue cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box.

First edition, inscribed to the author’s dear friend and fellow economist just four months before the author’s tragic death: “To Harold Hotelling with the warm regards of Henry Schultz, July 15, 1938.”

A “student of Henry L. Moore, Henry Schultz was a leading Walrasian in the United States, a pioneer in the introduction of quantitative methods into economics and one of the prominent members of the early Chicago School before his sudden death… Following Moore’s lead, Schultz spent much of his short-lived career attempting to statistically estimate demand and supply functions for various products in all the multi-market complexity of Walras’ general equilibrium system. His efforts are best captured in his two most famous studies [of which this is one]. His work on the application of statistical methods to economic subjects laid much of the groundwork for later econometrics” (History of Economic Thought). This presentation copy is inscribed to prominent economist and statistician Harold Hotelling. The two were not only colleagues, but also close friends. Milton Friedman was quoted as saying: “Thanks to Henry Schultz’s friendship with Harold Hotelling, I was offered an attractive fellowship at Columbia… The year at Columbia widened my horizons still further. Harold Hotelling did for mathematical statistics what Jacob Viner had done for economic theory: revealed it to be an integrated logical whole, not a set of cook-book recipes. He also introduced me to rigorous mathematical economics. After the year at Columbia, I returned to Chicago, spending a year as research assistant to Henry Schultz who was then completing his classic, The Theory and Measurement of Demand.” Accordingly, this is a most desirable association. However, any inscribed copy of this work is quite rare. Schultz was tragically killed on November 26, 1939, while driving on a mountain road near San Diego, less than a year after this work was published and a mere four months after this copy was inscribed. It was Hotelling who would write an article entitled, “The Work of Henry Schultz” for an April 1939 issue of leading economics journal Econometrica. It was only appropriate as he was cited by Schulz in this work no less than dozen times (pp. 22, 23, 599, 601, 603, 604, 624, 630, 633, 634, 642, 643, 644, 645, 646) and given an entire chapter entitled, “Hotelling Conditions” (beginning on page 575).

Book extremely good, with a few spots of pinpoint foxing to preliminaries, light soiling and faintest foxing to cloth. Scarce dust jacket very good, with small spot of soiling to front panel, a bit of chipping to extremities, and mild toning to spine. A rare inscribed copy with an outstanding association.