David Hawkins and the making of the Hawkins-Simon conditions

Abstract

The Hawkins-Simon conditions, which are necessary and sufficient for the viability of input–output systems, are described in many encyclopedias, textbooks and papers, but always without historical details about the philosopher David Hawkins. The rich literature on the history of input–output economics has neglected Hawkins, probably because he spent only a few years among the economists. My paper fills this gap. By using the relevant archival material on Hawkins, Simon, and Leontief, I correct and expand some scarce remarks on Hawkins by Simon and Samuelson. I discuss Hawkins’s three remarkable contributions to economics. First, Hawkins’s dynamic input–output model in Econometrica in 1948 scooped Leontief. Second, I show how the correspondence between Hawkins and Simon created their famous joint note in Econometrica in 1949. Third, an overlooked chapter in Hawkins’s 1964 book The Language of Nature discussed the commodity values of commodities, generalizing Marx’s labour values and the Technocrats's energy values.