Marshall Jevons Fictitious name of mystery writer Country: USA

Biography of Marshall Jevons

Marshall Jevons is a fictional name created by William Breit and Kenneth G. Elzinga. The idea of using a pseudonym came to Breit, who came up with the character of a detective amateur who utilized economic theory to solve crimes. Elzinga was so captivated by his colleague's idea that he decided to actively participate in writing the book.

Over the next twenty years, during the peak of their academic careers, William and Kenneth became co-authors of three books about the mysterious adventures of Henry Spearman, a Harvard economist detective. Spearman, according to the authors, was a middle-aged man of average height with a bald head. The first book, "Murder at the Margin," was published in 1978, followed by "The Fatal Equilibrium" in 1985, and "A Deadly Indifference" in 1995.

In 1978, after three years of productive collaboration, the two economists published their first book under the name of the publishing house "Thomas Horton and Daughters" without revealing their true identities. The author of the book was named Marshall Jevons, and Elzinga created an elaborate biography for him. Marshall Jevons was presented as the president of "UtilMax, Inc.," an international consulting company headquartered in New York City. He was a former Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford, holding degrees in economics, biochemistry, and oceanography. Additionally, Mr. Jevons was an Olympic medalist in kayaking and had interests in rocket technology and the cocoa bean futures market. Although Jevons was originally from Virginia, he preferred to call the ocean liner "Queen Elizabeth 2" his home.

However, in subsequent editions, Breit and Elzinga acknowledged their authorship. The book "Murder at the Margin" is still used as supplementary reading material in many introductory economics courses. Commercially, the novel was successful, prompting the MIT Press to offer the authors to write a sequel about the adventures of the bald genius Henry Spearman. After the presentation of "The Fatal Equilibrium" in 1985, the sequel was released in paperback format a year later. Marshall Jevons, commenting on his success, stated, "Is there any greater pleasure than the satisfaction of seeing your own book in paperback on the shelf in an airport bookstore?"

The name Marshall Jevons itself is a combination of the surnames of two 19th-century English economists, Alfred Marshall and William Stanley Jevons. In all three books, the authors incorporate economic terms: "margin" from "marginalism," "equilibrium" from "static equilibrium," and "indifference" from "indifference curve."

The economics blog "The Bayesian Heresy" also utilized the pseudonym Marshall Jevons.