Etienne Laspeyres
(Ernst Louis) Etienne Laspeyres (1834 ÃÂÃÂ 1913) was Professor ordinarius of Economics and Statistics or State Sciences and cameralistics in Basel, Riga, Dorpat, Karlsruhe and finally for 26 years in Giessen. Laspeyres was the scion of a Huguenot family of originally Portuguese descent which had settled in Berlin in the 17th Century, which has confused pronounciation of his name to this day. He himself (probably) pronounced it as if it were German, which comes close to the Portuguese sound (Lass-pay-ress).Laspeyres is mainly known today for the index number formula for determining the price increase which he developed in 1871, and which is used until this day, usually in the form of the Laspeyres-Paasche Index. Other than that, he may count as a father of business administration as an academic-professional discipline in Germany, and as one of the main unifiers of economics and statistics by "developing ideas which are today by and large nationally and internationally reality: quantification and operationalization of economics; expansion of official statistics; cooperation of official statistics and economic research; and integration of the economist and the statistician in one person." (Rinne) In economics, Laspeyres was to some extent a representative of the Historical School and certainly of Kathedersozialismus.