Lionel Robbins

Lionel Charles Robbins, Baron Robbins (1898 - 1984) was a British economist, famous for his "Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science", and for his instrumental efforts in shifting Anglo-Saxon economics from its Marshallian toward Continental direction. His “Robbins Report” led to the major expansion of British higher education in 1960s and 1970s, which led to the formation of modern British university system.

Life

Lionel Charles Robbins was born in Sipson, Middlesex, England. He was educated at Southall County School, University College, London, and the London School of Economics (LSE). During the World War I, 1916-1919, he served in the Royal Field Artillery.

Robbins became research assistant of William Beveridge in 1923, and a lecturer at New College, Oxford in 1924. In 1925 he started his long-term relationship with the London School of Economics, where he stayed for the rest of his career. He was initially a Lecturer (from 1925 to 1927), and was named a Professor of Political Economics in 1929. He taught there until 1961. He was also a Fellow and Lecturer at New College, Oxford 1927 - 1929.

In 1932 Robbins published his well-known methodological treatise, An Essay in the Nature and Significance of Economic Science, which ensured him international fame.

During the Second World War, Robbins served as Director of the Economic Section of Offices of the War Cabinet.

From 1954 to 1955 Robbins was President of the Royal Economic Society.

In 1959, Robbins received high recognition for his work, being created a life peer as Baron Robbins, of Clare Market in the City of Westminster.

Robbins resigned from LSE in 1961 to accept the chairmanship of the Financial Times, serving on that position until 1970.

Robbins was Chairman of the Committee on Higher Education, from 1961 to 1964. He published his famous Robbins Report in 1963, which revealed the need for additional resources in British higher education. His report eventually led to the major expansion of higher education in the Great Britain in the 1960s and 70s.

Robbins was a member of the Court of Governors at the London School of Economics and its Chairman from 1968 to 1974.

He was also a Trustee of the National Gallery, 1952 - 1959, 1960-67, 1967-74, and for the Tate Gallery, 1953 - 1959, 1962 - 1967. From 1955 to 1981 he was Director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and President of the British Academy 1962 - 1967.

Robbins died on May 15, 1984, in London.

Work

A follower of William Stanley Jevons and Philip Wicksteed, Robbins was influenced by the Continental European economists - Léon Walras, Vilfredo Pareto, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Friedrich Hayek, Friedrich von Wieser and Knut Wicksell. That was highly unusual for that time, when Marshallians dominated British economical thought. Robbins’s early essays were clearly combative in spirit, stressing the subjectivist theory of value and reflecting the spirit of Continental economics.

Robbins succeeded Allyn Young in the chair of the London School of Economics in 1929. Among his first appointments was Friedrich Hayek of Austrian school, who trained a new generation of English-speaking "continentals" such as John Hicks, Nicholas Kaldor, Abba Lerner and Tibor Scitovsky.

Robbins’s work on costs brought Wieser's "alternative cost" theorem of supply to England (which was opposed to Marshall's "real cost" theory of supply). His critique of the Marshallian theory of the representative firm and his critique of the Pigovian Welfare Economics influenced the end of the Marshallian empire.

Robbins was initially opposed to Keynes's General Theory. His 1934 treatise on the Great Depression is an analysis of that period. He believed that the depression was caused by undersaving and too much consumption (similar to Austrians). Robbins saw his London School of Economics as a bulwark against Cambridge, whether it was populated by Marshallians or Keynesians. However, he was eventually to recant and accept the Keynesian Revolution.

An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science

Robbins’s major work was his Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science. In it he offered one of the first definitions of economics. He wrote:

"Economics is a science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses."

Robbins believed that the distinction needed to be made between positive and normative economics, positive dealing with hypotheses about economic relationships measurable by empirical evidence, while normative dealing with value judgments of what the economy “ought to be”. Robbins argued that economists need to deal only with positive economics.

Robbins also believed that economics is a system of logical deduction from first principles. He thus didn’t have high opinion on the feasibility and usefulness of empirical verification. Here also he resembled Austrians and the Continental school of economical thought.

Robbins Report

Robbins is also greatly responsible for the modern British university system - having advocated in the Robbins Report its massive expansion in the 1960s.

The Robbins Report was commissioned by the British government in the 1960s to look into the future of higher education in the United Kingdom. The Committee on Higher Education was chaired by Robbins from 1961 to 1964. After its publication, its conclusions were accepted by the government on October 24, 1963.

The report recommended immediate expansion of universities, and that all Colleges of Advanced Technology should be given the status of universities. Robbins also asked the government to subsidize qualified applicants for higher education who would not otherwise have money to attend the university. Consequently, the number of full-time university students was to rise from 197,000 in the 1967-68 academic year to 217,000 in the academic year of 1973-74 with "further big expansion" thereafter.

Later work

In the latter part of his life, Robbins turned to the history of economic thought, publishing various classic studies on English doctrinal history. Robbins' L.S.E. lectures, as he gave them in 1980 (more than fifty years after he first taught the subject upon his appointment in 1929), have been published posthumously.

Legacy

As the leader of the 1930s debate between London and Cambridge, Robbins is greatly responsible for the shift of Anglo-Saxon economics from its Marshallian toward Continental direction.

Robbins Report was the overture to the reforms of the higher education in the United Kingdom and the establishment of the modern university system in this country. It led to the foundation of the plate glass universities, notably the universities of East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Lancaster, Sussex, York, and Warwick, as well as prompting substantial expansion in the existing universities in the U.K.

Publications

• Robbins, Lionel C. 1926. Dynamics of Capitalism. Economica, 16, 31-39
• Robbins, Lionel C. 1934. The Great Depression. London: Macmillan and Co.
• Robbins, Lionel C. 1952. The Theory of Economic Policy in English Classical Political Economy. London: Macmillan and Co.
• Robbins, Lionel C. 1958. Robert Torrens and the Evolution of Classical Economics. London: Macmillan and Co.
• Robbins, Lionel C. 1963. Politics and Economics. New York: St Martin's Press,
• Robbins, Lionel C. 1966. The University in the Modern World. London: Macmillan and Co.
• Robbins, Lionel C. 1968. The Theory of Economic Development in the History of Economic Thought. London: Macmillan and Co.
• Robbins, Lionel C. 1971. Autobiography of an Economist. London: Macmillan and Co. ISBN 0333125088
• Robbins, Lionel C. 1976. Political Economy, Past and Present. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0231041284
• Robbins, Lionel C. 1979. Against Inflation. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0333259742
• Robbins, Lionel C. 1980. Higher Education Revisited. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0333286065
• Robbins, Lionel C. 1984 (original published in 1932). Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 0814773893
• Robbins, Lionel C. 2007 (original published in 1970). The Evolution of Modern Economic Theory. Aldine Transaction. ISBN 0202309193

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Blaug, Mark. 1992. Harold Hotelling (1895-1973), Lionel Robbins (1898-1984), Clark Warburton (1896-1979), John Bates Clark (1847-1938), Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973). An Elgar reference collection. Aldershot, Hants, England: Elgar. ISBN 1852785047
• Howson, Susan. 2004. The Origins of Lionel Robbins's Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science. History of Political Economy, 36(3), 413-443.
• Lionel Robbins (1898-1984). The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, on <http://www.econlib.org>. Retrieved on November 8, 2007, from <http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Robbins.html>
• Lord Lionel C. Robbins, 1898-1984. New School at <http://cepa.newschool.edu>. Retrieved on November 8, 2007, from <http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/robbins.htm>
• O'Brien, Denis P. 1988. Lionel Robbins. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 031201998X
• O'Brien, D. P. 1989. Lionel Robbins and the Austrian connection. Durham, NC: Duke University

External links

• Lionel Charles Robbins papers – Robbins papers at the British Library of Political and Economic Science website
• Lionel Charles Robbins Photographs at National Portrait Gallery
• Lord Lionel C. Robbins, 1898-1984 - Biography at New School website
• Lord Robbins - Biography at LSE website
• What Was “It” that Robbins Was Defining? – Paper discussing the Robbins’s definition of economics

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

• Lionel_Robbins,_Baron_Robbins  ^history
• Robbins_Report  ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

• History of "Lionel Robbins"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.