Editing Ladislaus Bortkiewicz

{{Short description|Russian economist and statistician}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name              = Ladislaus Bortkiewicz
| image             = Ladislaus Bortkiewicz.jpg
| caption           =
| birth_name        = Ladislaus Josephovich Bortkiewicz
| birth_date        = {{Birth date|1868|8|7|df=y}}
| birth_place       = [[Saint Petersburg]], [[Imperial Russia]]
| death_date        = {{death date and age|1931|7|15|1868|8|7|df=y}}
| death_place       = [[Berlin]], [[Weimar Republic|Germany]]
| residence         = 
| nationality       = 
| field             = [[Economist]], [[Statistician]]
| work_institution  = [[University of Berlin]] 1901&ndash;31 Professor<br/>Alexandrowskii Lyceum 1899&ndash;1900<br/>[[Russian Railways]] 1897&ndash;01<br/>[[University of Strasbourg]], 1895&ndash;1897 [[Privatdozent]]
| thesis_title      = Die mittlere Lebensdauer: Die Methoden ihrer Bestimmung und ihr Verhältnis zur Sterblichkeitsmessung
| thesis_year       = 1892
| thesis_url        = http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/dms/load/img/?PID=PPN527403490
| alma_mater        = [[University of Strasbourg]], [[Habilitation]] 1895<br/> [[University of Göttingen]], Ph.D. 1892<br>[[Saint Petersburg State University|University of Saint Petersburg]] 1890
| doctoral_advisor  = [[Georg Friedrich Knapp]] (Habil.)<br/>[[Wilhelm Lexis]] (Ph.D.)
| doctoral_students = [[Wassily Leontief]]
| known_for         = [[Poisson distribution]]<br/>[[Transformation problem]]
| prizes            = 
| religion          = 
| footnotes         =  
}}

'''Ladislaus Josephovich Bortkiewicz''' ([[Russian language|Russian]] Владислав Иосифович Борткевич, [[German language|German]] ''Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz'' or ''Ladislaus von Bortkewitsch'') (7 August 1868 &ndash; 15 July 1931) was a Russian [[economist]] and [[statistician]] of [[Poland|Polish]] ancestry. He wrote a book showing how the [[Poisson distribution]], a discrete [[probability distribution]], can be useful in applied statistics, and he made contributions to [[mathematical economics]]. He lived most of his professional life in [[Germany]], where he taught at Strassburg University (Privatdozent, 1895–1897) and Berlin University (1901–1931).

==Life and work==
Ladislaus Bortkiewicz was born in [[Saint Petersburg]], [[Imperial Russia]], to two ethnic Polish parents: Józef Bortkiewicz and Helena Bortkiewicz (née Rokicka). His father was a [[szlachta|Polish nobleman]] who served in the [[Imperial Russian Army|Russian Imperial Army]].

Bortkiewicz graduated from the Law Faculty in 1890. In 1898 he published a book about the [[Poisson distribution]], titled ''The Law of Small Numbers''.<ref>Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz, ''Das Gesetz der kleinen Zahlen'' [The law of small numbers] (Leipzig, Germany: B.G. Teubner, 1898).  On [https://archive.org/stream/dasgesetzderklei00bortrich#page/n18/mode/1up page 1], Bortkiewicz presents the Poisson distribution.  On [https://archive.org/stream/dasgesetzderklei00bortrich#page/n61/mode/2up pages 23–25], Bortkiewicz presents his famous analysis of "4.  Beispiel:  Die durch Schlag eines Pferdes im preussischen Heere Getöteten." (4. Example: Those killed in the Prussian army by a horse's kick.).  On pages 17–20 Bortkiewicz presents his analysis of "1. Beispiel:  Die Selbstmorde von Kindern in Preussen." (1. Example:  Suicides of children in Prussia.).  Bortkiewicz's book is reviewed in:  L. v. Bortkewitsch (1898) "Das Gesetz der kleinen Zahlen," ''Monatshefte für Mathematik'', vol. 9, [https://books.google.com/books?id=3sUKAAAAIAAJ&pg=RA1-PA39 pages 39–41].</ref> In this book he first noted that events with low frequency in a large population follow a Poisson distribution even when the probabilities of the events varied. It was that book that made the Prussian horse-kicking data famous. The data gave the number of soldiers killed by being kicked by a horse each year in each of 14 cavalry corps over a 20-year period. Bortkiewicz showed that those numbers followed a Poisson distribution. The book also examined data on child-suicides. Some<ref>p.e. I J Good, Some statistical applications of Poisson's work, Statist. Sci. 1 (2) (1986), 157&ndash;180.
[https://www.jstor.org/stable/2245435 JSTOR link]</ref> have suggested that the Poisson distribution should have been named the "Bortkiewicz distribution."
[[File:Bortkiewicz - Opere, 1971 - 5795778.tif|thumb|Bortkiewicz' 1971 book ''The economic theory of Marx'']]
In political economy, Bortkiewicz is important for his analysis of [[Karl Marx]]'s reproduction schema in the last two volumes of ''[[Das Kapital|Capital]]''. Bortkiewicz identified a [[transformation problem]] in Marx's work. Making use of [[Vladimir Karpovich Dmitriev|Dmitriev's]] analysis of [[David Ricardo|Ricardo]], Bortkiewicz proved that the data used by Marx was sufficient to calculate the general profit rate and relative prices. Though Marx's transformation procedure was not correct—because it did not calculate prices and profit rate simultaneously, but sequentially—Bortkiewicz has shown that it is possible to get the correct results using the Marxian framework, i.e. using the Marxian variables constant capital and variable capital it is possible to obtain the profit rate and the relative prices in a three-sector model. This "correction of the Marxian system" has been the great contribution of Bortkiewicz to classical and Marxian economics but it was completely unnoticed until [[Paul Sweezy]]'s 1942 book "Theory of Capitalist Development". [[Piero Sraffa]] (1960) has provided the complete generalization of the simultaneous method for classical and Marxian analysis.{{cn|date=May 2024}}{{clarify|date=April 2025}}

Bortkiewicz died in [[Berlin]], [[Weimar Republic|Germany]]. His papers, including a voluminous correspondence file (some 1,000 letters 1876–1931), were deposited at [[Uppsala University]] in Sweden,<ref>L.v.Bortkiewicz Archiv, Manuskript & Musik Abteilung, Universitätsbibliothek Uppsala,</ref> except for his correspondence with [[Léon Walras]] which went into the collection of the Walras scholar [[William Jaffé]] in the USA.

==Major publications==
*''Die mittlere Lebensdauer. Die Methoden ihrer Bestimmung und ihr Verhältnis zur Sterblichkeitsmessung''. Gustav Fischer, Jena 1893 ([http://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?PPN527403490 Göttinger Digitalisierungszentrum])
*"Review of Léon Walras, ''Éléments d'économie politique pure'', 2e édit.", 1890, ''Revue d'économie politique''
*{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/download/dasgesetzderklei00bortrich/dasgesetzderklei00bortrich.pdf |  author=Ladislaus Bortkiewicz | title=Das Gesetz der kleinen Zahlen | location=Leipzig | publisher=B.G. Teubner | year=1898 }}
* {{cite journal | author=Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz | title=Wertrechnung und Preisrechnung im Marxschen System (1) | journal=[[Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik]] | volume=23 |  pages=1–50 | year=1906 | url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bortkiewicz.1906.pdf }} 
* {{cite journal | author=Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz | title=Wertrechnung und Preisrechnung im Marxschen System (2) | journal=Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik | volume=25 |  pages=10–51 |  year=1907 | url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bortkiewicz.1907a.pdf }} &mdash; Article's English translation (''[http://jphdupre.chez-alice.fr/livre/pdf/bortkiewicz.pdf Value and Price in the Marxian System]''), 1952, International Economic Papers, No.2
* {{cite journal | author=Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz | title=Wertrechnung und Preisrechnung im Marxschen System (3) | journal=Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik | volume=25 | pages=455–488 | year=1907 | url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bortkiewicz.1907b.pdf }}
* {{cite book | author=Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz | contribution=On the Correction of Marx's Fundamental Theoretical Construction in the Third Volume of ''Capital'' | pages=197–221 | contribution-url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Bortkiewicz.1949.pdf | editor=Paul M. Sweezy | title=Karl Marx and the Close of his System | location=New York | publisher=Augustus M. Kelley | year=1949 }} &mdash; [https://web.archive.org/web/20071128102852/http://ar.geocities.com/alfonsoflorido/bortkiewicz_sobrelatransformacion.pdf Spanish version 1917] * [[:File:Bortkiewicz.1907c.pdf|Original German version]]
* {{cite book | url=http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=math;cc=math;idno=04390001;view=image;seq=5 |  author=Ladislaus Bortkiewicz | title=Die Iterationen &mdash; Ein Beitrag zur Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie | location=Berlin | publisher=Springer | year=1917 }} 
*"Die Rodbertus'sche Grundrententheorie und die Marx'sche Lehre von der absoluten Grundrente", from: "Archiv für die Geschichte des Sozialismus und der Arbeiterbewegung", 1910–11

==Notes==
{{Reflist|2}}

==References==
*[[Joseph Schumpeter]]. Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz, Economic Journal, Vol. 42 (1932), pp.&nbsp;338&ndash;340, reprinted in: Ten great economists from Marx to Keynes (New York, 1960), pp.&nbsp;302&ndash;305
*[[Emil Julius Gumbel]]. Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz, International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences '''2''' (New York, 1968), pp.&nbsp;128&ndash;131. Freely available online at [https://web.archive.org/web/20120614034710/http://statprob.com/encyclopedia/LadislausVonBORTKIEWICZ.html StatProb @ Internet Archive Wayback Machine]
*[[Paul A. Samuelson]]. Resolving a Historical Confusion in Population Analysis. Human Biology, 48, 1976: pp.&nbsp;559–580

==External links==
{{commons category|Ladislaus Bortkiewicz (economist)}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20030211025321/http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Bortkiewicz.html Biographical sketch] on the web site of the [[University of St. Andrews]] (in [[Scotland]])
* [http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2830900542.html Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz] from encyclopedia.com
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060615103917/http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/bortk.htm New School: Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz]
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20160407085614/https://sfb649.wiwi.hu-berlin.de/papers/pdf/SFB649DP2014-015.pdf Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz &mdash; statistician, economist, and a European intellectual]'', SFB 649 Discussion Paper 2014-015

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bortkiewicz, Ladislaus}}
[[Category:1868 births]]
[[Category:1931 deaths]]
[[Category:Economists from the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:Mathematicians from Saint Petersburg]]
[[Category:Statisticians from the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:People from the Russian Empire of Polish descent]]
[[Category:Marxian economists]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the Humboldt University of Berlin]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Statistical Society]]
[[Category:Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the German Empire]]