Fritz Wilfrid Pareto was born in Paris on 15 July 1848.
His mother, Marie Metenier, was a French citizen and his father, the Marchese Raffaele Pareto, was an Italian supporter of fellow exile Giuseppe Mazzini, the activist leader of Giovine Italia who advocated the unification of Italy.
It would be pure speculation to reflect on why a French woman and Italian man decided to christen their son with German given names, but he continued to use those names during his student life, writing “Fritz Wilfrid” Pareto on formal documents and “Wilfrid” on his letters. But from early adulthood he consistently Italianized his given names in most documents, including his published works, which refer to him as Vilfredo Pareto, although the passport issued to him by the Free State of Fiume is in the name of “Fedrigo Vilfredo Pareto”.The Pareto family moved to Italy in 1854, initially to Genoa (Busino 2002; Mornati 2015: 7). When living in Turin, “Vilfredo” progressively completed: his matriculation (“la licenza di maturita”) to qualify for university entry in 1864; the certificate in mathematics and physics at the University of Turin in 1867; and the diploma of “graduate engineer” at the University of Turin’s Scuola di Applicazione per Ingegneri in 1870. Between 1870 and 1890 he worked in Italy’s emerging ironworks industry, initially as an engineer at the Societa Anonima delle Strade Ferrate (Railways Company Limited) in Florence between 1870 and 1873. He then took a senior engineering post with the Societa dell’Industria del Ferro (Iron Industry Company) in 1873 and rose to become the Director General of that company in 1880 when it was reorganized and renamed as the Societa delle Ferriere Italiane (Italian Ironworks Company). However, he was “retired” from that position in 1890 after he had compromised the firm’s financial position through his dealings on the London iron market (Busino 1987: 800), which gave him time to devote his energies to studying and writing on economic issues, which he had taken an interest in as a young man (even becoming a founding member of the Florence-based Adam Smith Society in 1874).
Also in 1890, Pareto met Leon Walras, Professor of Political Economy at the University of Lausanne, and Maffeo Pantaleoni, one of the directors and editors of the Giornale degli Economisti.In 1893 Pareto succeeded Walras at the University of Lausanne, from where he continued to make important contributions to the Giornale degli Economisti, some of a purely scholarly character while others, such as his Cronaca for the journal, were essentially critical and partisan commentaries on the economic, fiscal and military policies of the Italian Government and the state of the Italian economy. He also commenced writing his series of influential scholarly books from Switzerland, most notably the two-volume Cours d’Economie Politique (1896-97), the two-volume Les systemes socialistes (1901-02) and the Manuale di Economia Politica (1906) and the subsequent French edition the Manuel d’Economie Politique (1909). Pareto retired from the University of Lausanne in 1911, which freed him up to work intensively on his Trattato di Sociologia Generale (1916). After a long period of illness, Pareto died in Celigny on 21 August 1923.
Like most giants of intellectual history, Pareto’s contribution to thought evolved, but the evolution of his ideas is especially important to an understanding of his contribution to intellectual history as he made significant contributions during all phases of his scholarship. Consequently, this entry is structured around three discrete periods in Pareto’s scholarly life. First, the initial phase between 1890 and 1899 is considered. During this early stage his contributions were primarily associated with the application of Walras’s conception of economic equilibrium to a range of topics - like welfare, trade and rent - although all such applications were undertaken within a different methodological context to that employed by Walras. Second, the intermediate phase between 1900 and 1911 is considered. His greatest single contribution during this period is associated with a shift in focus from “applied” theory to the pure theory of economics via his work on choice theory. Thirdly, the last phase of his scholarly life, which runs from 1912 until his death in 1923, is considered. During this time Pareto developed a sociological theory that is relevant to economists because it considers when sociological investigation of the economic phenomenon is necessary, which extends to issues that would later be considered in a modern context through the “Social Welfare” function. This discussion of Pareto concludes with a brief overview of his legacy and influence on the development of economic ideas.