Occorrono troppe vite per farne una. La concezione di tempo e incertezza in Sergio Steve

For Sergio Steve, the economist in the relationship with his subject had to give up the claim to formulas that could open worlds with the key of value judgments, which belonged to the doctrinaire and not to people’s aspira tions. This methodological vision finds a specific application in the discus sion of the role of time and uncertainty in individual and collective economic choices. In the scientific production of Steve this subject will be recurring and will be central in his conception of economics and public finance. In an article published in 1941, Steve performs a thorough analysis of the effects that taxation of extraprofits may have in the long run on accumulation and production choices under uncertainty. In a further article, in 1947, he recognizes the role of uncertainty as the main obstacle to the definition of a general tax. In the Svimez lectures on Teoria della politica economica, Steve anticipates the recent behavioural economics literature, by illustrating cases in which the dynamic incon sistency of individual choices yields violations of economic rationality. However, recognizing the variability and uncertainty of human behav iour, together with their consequences for economic theory, did not have to “lead to the loss of confidence in reason”, but rather to the construction of a critical reason aimed at understanding individual and social behaviours as a premise to public intervention.