Product Code Database
Joan Violet Robinson ( Maurice; 31 October 1903 – 5 August 1983) was a British economist known for her wide-ranging contributions to economic theory. One of the most prominent economists of the century, Robinson incarnated the "Cambridge School" in most of its guises in the 20th century. She started out as a Alfred Marshall, became one of the earliest and most ardent Keynesians after 1936, and ended up as a leader of the neo-Ricardian and post-Keynesian schools.
Joan Maurice studied economics at Girton College, Cambridge. She completed her studies in 1925 but due to Cambridge University's refusal to grant degrees to women until 1948, she did not formally graduate. Following her marriage to economist Austin Robinson the next year, she became known as Joan Robinson.
The couple moved to India shortly after their marriage where Joan Robinson became interested in the relations between the British Raj and the Indian princely states and wrote a report on the subject. This time in India was a formative experience on Robinson, shaping her future research interest in both the country and her studies of developing economies. In 1928, the couple returned to Cambridge and Robinson started teaching in the early 1930s as a Junior Assistant Lecturer.
As a member of "the Cambridge School" of economics, Robinson contributed to the support and exposition of Keynes' General Theory, writing especially on its employment implications in 1936 and 1937 (it attempted to explain employment dynamics in the midst of the Great Depression).
During World War II, Robinson worked on a few different committees for the wartime national government. During this time, she visited the Soviet Union as well as China, gaining an interest in underdeveloped and developing nations.
Robinson was a frequent visitor to Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Thiruvananthapuram, India. She was a visiting fellow at the Centre in the mid-1970s. She instituted an endowment fund to support public lectures at the centre. She was a frequent visitor to the centre until January 1982 and participated in all activities of the centre and especially student seminars. Professor Robinson donated royalties of two of her books ( Selected Economic Writings, Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1974, Introduction to Modern Economics (jointly with John Eatwell), Delhi; Tata McGraw Hill, 1974) to CDS.
Robinson also made several trips to China, reporting her observations and analyses in China: An Economic Perspective (1958), The Cultural Revolution in China (1969), and Economic Management in China (1975; 3rd edn, 1976), in which she praised the Cultural Revolution. In October 1964, Robinson also visited North Korea, which was effectively a single-party Communist state, and wrote in her report "Korean Miracle" that the country's success was due to "the intense concentration of the Koreans on national pride" under Kim Il Sung, "a messiah rather than a dictator." She also stated in reference to the division of Korea that "obviously, sooner or later the country must be reunited by absorbing the South into socialism." During her last decade, she became more and more pessimistic about the possibilities of reforming economic theory, as expressed, for example, in her essay "Spring Cleaning."Harcourt, p. 169.
Robinson was a strict Vegetarianism. She slept in a small unheated hut at the bottom of her garden all year round. "Robinson née Maurice, Joan Violet". oxforddnb.com. Retrieved 14 January 2023.
In 1942, Robinson's An Essay on Marxian Economics famously concentrated on Karl Marx as an economist, helping to revive the debate on this aspect of his legacy.
In 1956, Robinson published her masterpiece, The Accumulation of Capital, which extended Keynesianism into the long run.
In 1962, she published Essays in the Theory of Economic Growth, another book on growth theory, which discussed Golden Age growth paths. Afterwards, she developed the Cambridge growth theory with Nicholas Kaldor. She was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1964.
In 1964 she made important contributions to the field of economic methodology. She explored the philosophical foundations of economic analysis in her influential book Economic Philosophy, criticizing traditional methodological approaches and arguing in favor of a more diverse and interdisciplinary approach to economics. She promoted a more practical and historically informed approach that considers the social and institutional environment within which economic phenomena occur.
In 1984, Robinson was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Near the end of her life, she studied and concentrated on methodological problems in economics and tried to recover the original message of Keynes' General Theory. Between 1962 and 1980, she wrote many economics books for the general public. Robinson suggested developing an alternative to the revival of classical economics.
The Cultural Revolution in China, 1968, is written from the perspective of trying to understand the thinking that lay behind the revolution, particularly Mao Zedong's preoccupations.
In June 2019, the United States Supreme Court used Robinson's monopsony theory in its decision for Apple v. Pepper. Justice Brett Kavanaugh delivered the majority opinion, stating Apple can be sued by application developers, "on a monopsony theory."
In 1948, she was appointed the first economist member of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.Stephen Wilks, In the Public Interest: Competition Policy and the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, p. 93.
In 1949, she was invited by Ragnar Frisch to become the vice-president of the Econometric Society but declined by saying she that could not be part of the editorial committee of a journal that she could not read.
During the 1960s, she was a major participant in the Cambridge capital controversy alongside Piero Sraffa.
At least two students who studied under her have won the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel; they are Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz. In his autobiographical notes for the Nobel Foundation, Joseph Stiglitz described their relationship as "tumultuous" and Robinson as unused to "the kind of questioning stance of a brash American student"; after a term, Joseph Stiglitz therefore "switched to Frank Hahn".Stiglitz, Joseph E. "Autobiography" , Nobel Foundation, Stockholm, December 2002. Retrieved on 8 May 2012. In his own autobiography notes, Amartya Sen described Robinson as "totally brilliant but vigorously intolerant."Sen, Amartya "Autobiography" , Nobel Foundation, Stockholm, 1998. Retrieved on 8 May 2012.
She also influenced Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh which altered his approach towards economic policies.
Joan Maurice married fellow economist Austin Robinson in 1926. They had two daughters.
In April 2024, a blue plaque was erected in Kensington Gardens, London, to honour Robinson's life and work. English Heritage, the awarding organisation, described her as 'one of the first women to achieve academic prominence in the discipline of economics'.
The economics society of Girton College, Cambridge is named the Joan Robinson Society.
|
|
