Mathematical Economics up to 1925

The use of formalisms was infrequent in the early stages of the discipline, but some attempts at framing economic concepts and theories in mathematical terms appeared from the beginning. Initially rudimentary, they steadily gained in sophistication, explan­atory power, and creative potential. Despite their limited diffusion, these undertakings contributed to shaping some of the essential principles of economics and influenced its development, both substantively and methodologically. What follows is an overview of the main phases of development of mathematical economics at this stage, with its first steps in the eighteenth century, its improvements in the early nineteenth century, the sub­sequent blooming of marginalism, and the first formal models of the market mechanism.