Edwin Cannan Explained
Edwin Cannan (3 February 1861 – 8 April 1935) was a British economist and historian of economic thought.[3] [4] He taught at the London School of Economics from 1895 to 1926.[5] [6]
Biography
Edwin Cannan was the younger son of David Alexander Cannan and artist Jane Dorothea Claude.[7] [8] His mother died at the age of 38 of tuberculosis in Madeira, Portugal 18 days after her son Edwin was born.[9] He studied at Balliol College, Oxford.
As a follower of William Stanley Jevons, Edwin Cannan is perhaps best known for his logical dissection and destruction of Classical theory in his famous 1894 tract A History of the Theories of Production and Distribution.[10] Although Cannan had personal and professional difficulties with Alfred Marshall, he was still "Marshall's man" at the LSE from 1895 to 1926. During that time, particularly during his long stretch as chairman after 1907, Edwin Cannan shepherded the LSE away from its roots in Fabian socialism into tentative Marshallianism. This period was only to last, however, until his protégé, Lionel Robbins, took over with his more "Continental" ideas.[11] [12]
Though Cannan, in his early years as an economist, was a critic of classical economics and an ally of interventionists, he moved sharply to the side of classical liberalism in the early 20th century. He favoured simplicity, clarity, and common sense in the exposition of economics.[13] [14] Cannan emphasised the institutional foundation of economic systems.[15] [16]
Cannan is buried at Wolvercote Cemetery Oxford, England.[17]
Major works
- Book: The Duke of Saint Simon . Oxford and London . B.H. Blackwell; Simpkin, Marshall and Co. . 1885 . Google Books . 23 July 2023.
- Book: Elementary Political Economy . 1888 . Henry Frowde . London . 10 May 2018 . Internet Archive.
- The Origin of the Law of Diminishing Returns, 1813-15, 1892, The Economic Journal (EJ).
- Ricardo in Parliament, 1894, EJ.
- Book: Cannan, Edwin . A History of the Theories of Production and Distribution in English Political Economy from 1776 to 1848 . Rivington, Percival & Co. . London . 1894 . 12 May 2018 . Internet Archive.
- Book: Preface, Introduction . Cannan . Edwin . Edwin Cannan . Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms delivered in the University of Glasgow by Adam Smith and reported by a Student in 1763 . First . Clarendon Press . 1896 . Oxford . https://archive.org/stream/lecturesonjustic00smituoft#page/n7/mode/2up . 12 May 2018 . Internet Archive .
- Book: The History of Local Rates in England . Longmans, Green and Co. . London, New York and Bombay . 1896 . . 22 July 2023.
- Book: Preface, Introduction, Notes, Marginal Summary . An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith . 1904 . Methuen . London . 12 May 2018 . Online Library of Liberty.
- Book: The Economic Outlook . 1912 . London and Leipsic . T. Fisher Unwin . Internet Archive . 20 June 2023.
- Book: Wealth: A Brief Explanation of the Causes of Economic Welfare . London . P. S. King and Son, Ltd . 1928 . 3rd . Internet Archive. ; via Mises.org.[18]
- Book: Coal nationalisation; précis and evidence offered to the Coal Industry Commission . London . P.S. King & Son, Ltd. . 1919 . .
- Early History of the term "Capital", 1921, QJE.
- An Application of the Theoretical Apparatus of Supply and Demand to Units of Currency, 1921, EJ.
- Book: Money: Its connexion with rising and falling prices . London . P.S. King & Son, Ltd. . 2nd . 1920 . Internet Archive. ; 7th ed., 1932, via Mises.org.
- Monetary Reform, with J.M. Keynes, Addis and Milner, 1924, EJ
- Book: An Economist's Protest . 1927 . London . P.S. King & Son, Ltd. . . 20 June 2023. [19]
- Book: A Review of Economic Theory . 1929 . New York . A.M. Kelley . registration . Internet Archive.
- Book: Modern Currency and the Regulation of Its Value . London . P.S. King & Son, Ltd. . 1931 . registration . Internet Archive.
- Book: Economic Scares . London . P.S. King & Son, Ltd. . 1933 . registration . Internet Archive.
- Book: Collected Works of Edwin Cannan in 8 volumes . 1998 . Ebenstein, Alan . Alan Ebenstein. London & New York . Routledge/Thoemmes Press. vol. 3
See also
External links
Notes and References
- Book: Robbins, Lionel . Autobiography on an Economist . 1971 . London and Basingstoke . Macmillan . registration . 81-83 .
- Web site: Neville Cain . Benham, Frederic Charles Courtenay (1900–1962). . 1979 . 29 December 2023.
- Bowley . A. L. . Arthur Lyon Bowley . Edwin Cannan: Obituary . The Economic Journal . 178 . 45 . June 1935 . 385 . 2224669.
- Professor Cannan: Obituary, An Orthodox Economist . The Times . 9 April 1935 . 21.
- Book: Robbins, Lionel . Lionel Robbins . A Biographical Note on Edwin Cannan . The Evolution of Modern Economic Theory and Other Papers on History of Economic Thought . London and Basingstoke . Palgrave Macmillan . registration . 1970 . 229-233.
- Book: Who's Who in Economics: A Biographical Dictionary of Major Economists 1700-1986 . CANNAN, Edwin . Blaug, Mark . Mark Blaug . 2nd . 1986 . Wheatsheaf Books Limited . registration . 142 . Internet Archive.
- Book: Who's Who, 1932: An Annual Biographical Dictionary with which is Incorporated "Men and Women of The Time" . London and New York . A & C Black Limited and The Macmillan Company . 1932 . 84 . registration . 521 . Internet Archive.
- Book: Who's Who, 1914: An Annual Biographical Dictionary with which is Incorporated "Men and Women of The Time" . London and New York . A & C Black Limited and The Macmillan Company . 1914 . 66 . 335 . Internet Archive.
- Book: Tribe, Keith . Edwin Cannan (1861-1935) . Cord, Robert A. . The Palgrave Companion to LSE Economics . London . Palgrave Macmillan . 2019 . 199 . 10.1057/978-1-137-58274-4. 978-1-137-58273-7 .
- Book: Cannan, Edwin . A History of the Theories of Production and Distribution in English Political Economy from 1776 to 1848 . Rivington, Percival & Co. . London . 1894 . 12 May 2018 . Internet Archive .
- Robbins . Lionel . Lionel Robbins . A Student's Recollections of Edwin Cannan . The Economic Journal . 178 . 45 . June 1935 . 398 . 2224669 .
- Cannan, Edwin . An Essay on the Significance of Economic Science. By LIONEL ROBBINS. (Pp. xii + 141. Macmillan. 7s. 6d.). The Economic Journal . September 1932 . 167 . 42 . 424-427 . 2224025.
- Book: Hayek, F.A. . F. A. Hayek . The Transmission of the Ideals of Economic Freedom . Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics . London . Routledge & Kegan Paul . 1967 . registration . 196 . Internet Archive.
- Book: Cannan, Edwin . The Practical Utility of Economic Science . The Economic Outlook . 172-194 . London; Leipsic . T. Fisher Unwin . 1912 . Internet Archive.
- Book: Coase, Ronald . Ronald Coase . 1995 . Economics at LSE in the 1930s . Essays on Economics and Economists . University of Chicago Press . Chicago . registration . 213 . 0-226-11102-4 . Internet Archive.
- See, for example, Book: Hodgson, Geoffrey M. . Geoffrey Hodgson . How Economics Forgot History . New York and London . Routledge . 2001 . 205. Hodgson remarks that in Wealth (1914) Cannan stressed the family, private property and the state.
- Edwin Cannan: The Tritute of a Friend . . C.R. . Fay . Charles Ryle Fay . June 1937 . 10.1111/j.1475-4932.1937.tb02811.x .
- In 1920, after the Great War, the first edition of Wealth of 1914 was placed in a time capsule beneath the foundation stone of the extension of the Old Building of the London School of Economics as a symbol of Edwin Cannan's contribution to the institution. See News and Views in Literary London . The New York Times . 12 June 1927 . BR18. Edwin Cannan also suggested the motto of the London School of Economics, rerum conoscere causas, adopted in 1922. See Book: Ralf, Dahrendorf . Ralf Dahrendorf . A History of the London School of Economics and Political Science . Oxford etc. . Oxford University Press . 1995 . 148 . registration . 0-19-820240-7 . Internet Archive.
- Hayek, F.A. . F.A. Hayek . Edwin Cannan: An Ecconomist's Protest. XX und 438 S. London: P.S. King & Son, Ltd. 1927 . Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie / Journal of Economics . 1. 3 . November 1929 . 467–470 . 41792296.