Wilhelm Lexis

Infobox Scientist
name = Wilhelm Lexis
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caption = Bust of Wilhelm Lexis, 1912
birth_date = July 17, 1837
birth_place = Eschweiler
death_date = October 25, 1914
death_place = Göttingen
residence = Germany
citizenship = German
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ethnicity =
field = Social scientist
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doctoral_advisor = August Beer
doctoral_students = Ladislaus Bortkiewicz
known_for = Founder of the field of insurance
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Wilhelm Lexis (July 17, 1837, Eschweiler – October 25, 1914, Göttingen) was an eminent German statistician, economist, and social scientist and a founder of the interdisciplinary study of insurance.

Born in Eschweiler as the son of a physician, Lexis obtained a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Heidelberg, where he was an assistant of the famous Chemist Robert Bunsen. He then worked as a Gymnasium teacher, librarian, and journalist, until in 1872 he became, until 1874, extraordinary professor at the newly-refounded German-language Imperial University of Straßburg. In 1874-1876, he taught at the University of Tartu, then at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, since 1884 at the University of Breslau, and from 1887 at the University of Göttingen, which was his final appointment. He died in Göttingen.

Although the author of an "Allgemeine Volkswirtschaftslehre" (general economics book) (1910) and certainly a distinguished economist, even a pioneer of Law and Economics thinking and of the study of consumption and crises, Lexis is today primarily known as a statistician, partially due to his creation of the Lexis ratio. His reputation as a demographer is underlined by the ubiquity of Lexis Diagrams, which are named for him, although primary credit for their invention belongs to Gustav Zeuner and O. Brasche [cite journal | last= Vanderschrick | first = Christophe | title=The Lexis diagram, a misnomer| journal= Demographic Research| volume =4 | number= 3| url=http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol4/3/4-3.pdf] (a notable example of Stigler's law of eponymy). He is also one of the founding fathers of the interdisciplinary, professional study of insurance. A "Kathedersozialist", he was closely affiliated with academic policy makers in Prussia and one of Friedrich Althoff’s experts and the editor of important works on German higher education, most famously the six-volume "Das Unterrichtswesen im Deutschen Reich", compiled for the St. Louis World's Fair of that year and still the key reference work for that time. Lexis' theoretical works on social science epistemology are largely forgotten but very relevant today.

External links

* [http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Lexis.html MacTutor: Wilhelm Lexis]
* [http://www.shsu.edu/~icc_cmf/bio/lexis.html Short biography]

Major publications

*"Einleitung in die Theorie der Bevölkerungsstatistik". Karl Trübner, Straßburg 1875 ( [http://dz-srv1.sub.uni-goettingen.de/sub/digbib/loader?did=D307894 Göttinger Digitalisierungszentrum] )
*"Zur Theorie der Massenerscheinungen in der menschlichen Gesellschaft". Fr. Wagner'sche Buchhandlung, Freiburg i. B. 1877 ( [http://dspace.utlib.ee/dspace/bitstream/10062/3542/7/lexistheorieocr.pdf University of Tartu] )
*"Abhandlungen zur Theorie der Bevölkerungs- und Moralstatistik". Gustav Fischer, Jena 1903 ( [http://dspace.utlib.ee/dspace/bitstream/10062/5316/4/lexis_abhandlocr.pdf University of Tartu] )
*"Allgemeine Volkswirtschaftslehre". B. G. Teubner, Berlin, Leipzig 1910 ( [http://dspace.utlib.ee/dspace/bitstream/10062/4683/4/hinnebergkulturocr.pdf University of Tartu] )

Notes