Georg de Buquoy - Founder of Mathematical Economy with South Bohemian Roots

TL;DR

Georg de Buquoy was a pioneering figure in mathematical economy, defining net yield and its optimization, with extensive practical and theoretical contributions that prefigured modern economic thought.

Contribution

This paper highlights Buquoy's novel mathematical definitions and systematic approach to national wealth, linking his economic ideas with his broader scientific work.

Findings

Buquoy correctly defined and mathematically expressed net yield.

He developed a systematic overview of theorems affecting national wealth.

His work remains influential, with citations as recent as 2008.

Abstract

Georg de Buquoy, Lord de Vaux, lived in Nove Hrady, Prague and Cerveny Hradek for most of his productive life. From his extensive scientific contributions, both theoretical and experimental, we expand here the discussion of his contributions to mathematical economy. He is mainly celebrated as the first persons to define correctly net yield and describe method for its optimization, which was considered "strikingly modern" still in 1950. Buquoy's program was "systematic overview of all theorems which affect maintenance and increase of national wealth" for which he correctly defined and mathematically expressed many economic terms. The most striking feature of Buquoy's writing is that he was also a very influential economic practitioner. He governed one of the wealthiest possessions in Bohemia, and perhaps in Austria, of his time. Thus his economical thinking expands from the "political part", which is economy in modern sense, to "...sources of national wealth, or the technical part of national economy ...". The complexity of Buquoy's view has little match in modern literature namely because the extent of data sources is hardly available in modern times. The article puts Buquoy's mathematical economy contributions in context to his mathematical physics thoughts and approaches. The last direct citation of Buquoy's work comes from the year 2008.