Edwin Cannan

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Edwin Cannan
Edwin Cannan, c. 1920
Born(1861-02-03)3 February 1861
Funchal, Madeira
Died8 April 1935(1935-04-08) (aged 74)
Bournemouth, England
Resting placeWolvercote Cemetery, Oxford
NationalityBritish
Spouse
Margaret Mary Cullen
​
​
(m. 1907)​
ChildrenDavid Cannan
Parent(s)David Alexander Cannan (father)
Jane Dorothea Claude (mother)
RelativesCharles Cannan (brother);[3]
May Wedderburn Cannan (niece)
Joanna Cannan (niece)
Gilbert Cannan
Academic career
InstitutionLondon School of Economics
FieldEconomics
Political Economy
History of Economic Thought
School or
tradition		classical liberalism
Alma materBalliol College, Oxford
Other notable studentsArnold Plant
Lionel Robbins[1]
Theodore Gregory
William Harold Hutt
Frederic Benham[2]

Edwin Cannan (3 February 1861, Funchal, Madeira – 8 April 1935, Bournemouth) was a British economist and historian of economic thought.[4][5] He taught at the London School of Economics from 1895 to 1926.[6][7]

Biography[edit]

Edwin Cannan was the younger son of David Alexander Cannan and artist Jane Dorothea Claude.[8][3] 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[edit]

Review of economic theory, 1929
  • The Duke of Saint Simon. Oxford and London: B.H. Blackwell; Simpkin, Marshall and Co. 1885. Retrieved 23 July 2023 – via Google Books.
  • Elementary Political Economy. London: Henry Frowde. 1888. Retrieved 10 May 2018 – via Internet Archive.
  • The Origin of the Law of Diminishing Returns, 1813-15, 1892, The Economic Journal (EJ).
  • Ricardo in Parliament, 1894, EJ.
  • Cannan, Edwin (1894). A History of the Theories of Production and Distribution in English Political Economy from 1776 to 1848. London: Rivington, Percival & Co. Retrieved 12 May 2018 – via Internet Archive.
  • Cannan, Edwin, ed. (1896). "Preface, Introduction". Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms delivered in the University of Glasgow by Adam Smith and reported by a Student in 1763 (First ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Retrieved 12 May 2018 – via Internet Archive.
  • The History of Local Rates in England. London, New York and Bombay: Longmans, Green and Co. 1896. Retrieved 22 July 2023 – via Internet Archive.
  • "Preface, Introduction, Notes, Marginal Summary". An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. London: Methuen. 1904. Retrieved 12 May 2018 – via Online Library of Liberty.
  • The Economic Outlook. London and Leipsic: T. Fisher Unwin. 1912. Retrieved 20 June 2023 – via Internet Archive.
  • Wealth: A Brief Explanation of the Causes of Economic Welfare (3rd ed.). London: P. S. King and Son, Ltd. 1928 – via Internet Archive.; via Mises.org.[18]
  • Coal nationalisation; précis and evidence offered to the Coal Industry Commission. London: P.S. King & Son, Ltd. 1919 – via Internet Archive.
  • Early History of the term "Capital", 1921, QJE.
  • An Application of the Theoretical Apparatus of Supply and Demand to Units of Currency, 1921, EJ.
  • Money: Its connexion with rising and falling prices (2nd ed.). London: P.S. King & Son, Ltd. 1920 – via Internet Archive.; 7th ed., 1932, via Mises.org.
  • Monetary Reform, with J.M. Keynes, Addis and Milner, 1924, EJ
  • An Economist's Protest. London: P.S. King & Son, Ltd. 1927. Retrieved 20 June 2023 – via Internet Archive.[19]
  • A Review of Economic Theory. New York: A.M. Kelley. 1929 – via Internet Archive.
  • Modern Currency and the Regulation of Its Value. London: P.S. King & Son, Ltd. 1931 – via Internet Archive.
  • Economic Scares. London: P.S. King & Son, Ltd. 1933 – via Internet Archive.
  • Ebenstein, Alan, ed. (1998). Collected Works of Edwin Cannan in 8 volumes. London & New York: Routledge/Thoemmes Press. vol. 3

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Robbins, Lionel (1971). Autobiography on an Economist. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan. pp. 81-83.
  2. ^ Neville Cain (1979). "Benham, Frederic Charles Courtenay (1900–1962)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Retrieved 29 December 2023.
  3. ^ a b Who's Who, 1914: An Annual Biographical Dictionary with which is Incorporated "Men and Women of The Time" (66 ed.). London and New York: A & C Black Limited and The Macmillan Company. 1914. p. 335 – via Internet Archive.
  4. ^ Bowley, A. L. (June 1935). "Edwin Cannan: Obituary". The Economic Journal. 45 (178): 385. JSTOR 2224669.
  5. ^ "Professor Cannan: Obituary, An Orthodox Economist". The Times: 21. 9 April 1935.
  6. ^ Robbins, Lionel (1970). "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. pp. 229-233.
  7. ^ Blaug, Mark, ed. (1986). "CANNAN, Edwin". Who's Who in Economics: A Biographical Dictionary of Major Economists 1700-1986 (2nd ed.). Wheatsheaf Books Limited. p. 142 – via Internet Archive.
  8. ^ Who's Who, 1932: An Annual Biographical Dictionary with which is Incorporated "Men and Women of The Time" (84 ed.). London and New York: A & C Black Limited and The Macmillan Company. 1932. p. 521 – via Internet Archive.
  9. ^ Tribe, Keith (2019). "Edwin Cannan (1861-1935)". In Cord, Robert A. (ed.). The Palgrave Companion to LSE Economics. London: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 199. doi:10.1057/978-1-137-58274-4. ISBN 978-1-137-58273-7.
  10. ^ Cannan, Edwin (1894). A History of the Theories of Production and Distribution in English Political Economy from 1776 to 1848. London: Rivington, Percival & Co. Retrieved 12 May 2018 – via Internet Archive.
  11. ^ Robbins, Lionel (June 1935). "A Student's Recollections of Edwin Cannan". The Economic Journal. 45 (178): 398. JSTOR 2224669.
  12. ^ Cannan, Edwin (September 1932). "An Essay on the Significance of Economic Science. By LIONEL ROBBINS. (Pp. xii + 141. Macmillan. 7s. 6d.)". The Economic Journal. 42 (167): 424–427. JSTOR 2224025.
  13. ^ Hayek, F.A. (1967). "The Transmission of the Ideals of Economic Freedom". Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 196 – via Internet Archive.
  14. ^ Cannan, Edwin (1912). "The Practical Utility of Economic Science". The Economic Outlook. London; Leipsic: T. Fisher Unwin. pp. 172-194 – via Internet Archive.
  15. ^ Coase, Ronald (1995). "Economics at LSE in the 1930s". Essays on Economics and Economists. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 213. ISBN 0-226-11102-4 – via Internet Archive.
  16. ^ See, for example, Hodgson, Geoffrey M. (2001). How Economics Forgot History. New York and London: Routledge. p. 205. Hodgson remarks that in Wealth (1914) Cannan stressed the family, private property and the state.
  17. ^ Fay, C.R. (June 1937). "Edwin Cannan: The Tritute of a Friend". The Economic Record. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4932.1937.tb02811.x.
  18. ^ 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: BR18. 12 June 1927. Edwin Cannan also suggested the motto of the London School of Economics, rerum conoscere causas, adopted in 1922. See Ralf, Dahrendorf (1995). A History of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Oxford etc.: Oxford University Press. p. 148. ISBN 0-19-820240-7 – via Internet Archive.
  19. ^ Hayek, F.A. (November 1929). "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): 467–470. JSTOR 41792296.

External links[edit]

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