Vladimir K. Dmitriev (1868-1913) was a Russian mathematical economist who published three major essays on economic theory.
Born near Smolensk, Dmitriev studied medicine and political economy at the University of Moscow before he took up a post as an excise controller in the provincial town of Von’kovitsy in 1896.
Three years later he had to give up this post, because he had contracted pulmonary tuberculosis, and chronic illness and notorious financial problems plagued him for the rest of his life. (For further biographical details, see Nuti 1974.)In 1898 Dmitriev published an essay (in Russian) on Ricardo’s theory of value, followed in 1902 by two further articles on Cournot’s theory of competition and on the theory of marginal utility. In 1904, the three essays were published together (in Russian) in a book entitled Economic Essays. First Series: Attempt at an Organic Synthesis of the Labour Theory of Value and the Theory of Marginal Utility. A French translation of this collection of essays was published in 1968 (Dmitriev 1968) and an English translation in 1974 (Dmitriev 1974); the three essays are also available in Italian, Spanish and German translations (Schutte 2003). Dmitriev’s further writings include a survey on statistical theory, a study on the problem of alcoholism, and several survey articles and book reviews on economic theory. (For a bibliography, see Nuti 1974: 30-31.)