Quirino Paris

Quirino Paris learned early on that symmetry is an important viewpoint in any research field. Thus, he has contributed to establish symmetry as a scientific criterion for modeling economic behavior of an individual agent and at more aggregate levels, in certain and uncertain environments.  The application of symmetry was also a determinant in the discovery of the dual specification of the least-squares estimator, a result that integrates the understanding of the traditional least-squares approach.

Paris has developed significant contributions to consumer and to producer theories. He has generalized (with Michael Caputo) the Slutsky-equation when real cash balances enter a consumer’s utility function. He has generalized (with Michael Caputo) the Hicksian comparative statics conditions of production theory by developing the case of price-induced technical progress. This work has received the 2006 AAEA Quality of Research Discovery Award.

Paris is among the very rare economists who embrace econometric and mathematical programming approaches to conduct applied research. He was among the first researchers to recognize and take full advantage of the primal-dual approach to modeling choice in both production and consumer theories.

Paris is well known for his revival of von Liebig’s law of the minimum, a conjecture about limiting nutrients as determinants of crop productivity.

He is also a Fellow of the European Association of Agricultural Economists.