Gérard Debreu

“A contract for the transfer of a commodity specifies, besides its physical properties, its location and its date.”

“For a private ownership economy, the first theorem of welfare economics states that, under certain assumptions, an equilibrium of prices and production and consumption plans is a Pareto optimum.”

“The theory of value is treated here with the standards of rigor of the contemporary formalist school of mathematics.”

“The axiomatization of economic theory has been a main scientific activity of the last fifty years.”

“The certainty of the conclusions is given by the sole fact that the axiomatic method is used.”

“The benefits that the sharp mathematical formulation of central economic problems has yielded to economic theory are impressive.”