Rescuing Henry George: Optimization, Welfare, and the Monopoly Game in Harold Hotelling’s Economic Thought

Abstract

Harold Hotelling’s work, from natural resources economics to optimal taxation, and from spatial to welfare economics, was deeply influenced by his Georgist affiliation and by a Georgist game that we now call Monopoly, which at the time was known as the Landlord’s Game. We explore this influence, its history, and the role it played in Hotelling’s work and ideas. We show that political beliefs deeply shaped Hotelling’s approach to economics and that the rules of the Landlord’s Game helped him think about economic mechanisms.