Joan Robinson

Joan Robinson

Post-Keynesian economics
Born	31 October 1903(1903-10-31) Surrey
Died	5 August 1983(1983-08-05) (aged 79) Cambridge
Nationality	British
Field	Monetary economics
Influences	John Maynard Keynes, Piero Sraffa, Michał Kalecki
Influenced	Athanasios Asimakopulos Amit Bhaduri Nicholas Kaldor Zenobia Knakiewicz
Contributions	Cambridge growth theory Amoroso-Robinson relation

Joan Violet Robinson FBA (31 October 1903 in Surrey – 5 August 1983 in Cambridge) was a post-Keynesian economist who was well known for her knowledge of monetary economics and wide-ranging contributions to economic theory. She was the daughter of Major-General Sir Frederick Barton Maurice, 1st Baronet and was married to fellow economist Austin Robinson.

Biography

Robinson read economics at Girton College, Cambridge. Immediately after graduation in 1925, she married economist Austin Robinson. In 1937, she became a lecturer in economics at the University of Cambridge. She joined the British Academy in 1958 and was then elected fellow of Newnham College in 1962. In 1965 she was given the position of full professor and fellow of Girton College. In 1979, just four years before she died, she became the first female fellow of King's College.

Initially a supporter of neoclassical economics, she changed her mind after getting acquainted with John Maynard Keynes. As a member of "the Cambridge School" of economics, Robinson assisted with 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).

In 1933, in her book, The Economics of Imperfect Competition, Robinson coined the term "monopsony," which is used to describe the buyer converse of a seller monopoly.

In 1942 Robinson's An Essay on Marxian Economics famously concentrated on Karl Marx as an economist, helping revive the debate on this aspect of his legacy.

During the Second World War, Joan Robinson worked on a few different Committees for the wartime national government. During this time, she visited the Soviet Union as well as China. She developed an interest in underdeveloped and developing nations and contributed a lot that is now understood in this section of economics.

In 1949, she was invited by Ragnar Frisch to become the vice president of the Econometric Society but declined, saying she couldn't be part of the editorial committee of a journal she couldn't read.

In 1956, Joan Robinson published her magnum opus, The Accumulation of Capital, which extended Keynesianism into the long-run. Six years later, she published another book about growth theory, which talked about concepts of "Golden Age" growth paths. Afterwards, she developed the Cambridge growth theory with Nicholas Kaldor. During the 1960s, she was a major participant in the Cambridge capital controversy alongside Piero Sraffa.

Close to 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.

At least two students who studied under her have won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences: Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz.

Also, Robinson 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 ed, 1976), in which she praised the Cultural Revolution. She also stated in reference to divided Korea that "[o]bviously, sooner or later the country must be reunited by absorbing the South into socialism." These statements caused significant damage to her reputation, and possibly cost her the Nobel Prize for Economics. 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”.

Major works

• The Economics of Imperfect Competition (1933)
• An Essay on Marxian Economics (1942), Second Edition (1966), The Macmillan Press Ltd, ISBN 0 333 05800 3
• Accumulation of Capital (1956)
• Exercises in Economic Analysis (1960)
• Essays in the Theory of Economic Growth (1962)
• Economic Philosophy: An essay on the progress of economic thought (1962)
• Freedom and Necessity: An introduction to the study of society (1970)
• Economic Heresies: Some Old Fashioned Questions in Economic Theory, (1971) Basic Books New York ISBN 465-017686-x
• Contributions to Modern Economics, (1978) Basil Blackwell Oxford ISBN 0 631 19220 4

Texts for the lay reader

• Economics is a serious subject: The apologia of an economist to the mathematician, the scientist and the plain man (1932), Publisher: W. Heffer & Sons
• Introduction to the Theory of Employment (1937)
• An Introduction to Modern Economics (1973) with John Eatwell
• The Arms Race (1982), Tanner Lectures on Human Values

See also

• International economics
• List of economists
• Macroeconomics
• Wealth condensation
• Welfare economics

References

• Pure Competition

Further reading

• Emani, Zohreh, 2000, "Joan Robinson" in Robert W. Dimand et al. eds. A Biographical Dictionary of Women Economists, Edward Elgar
• Harcourt, GC, 1995, Obituary: Joan Robinson 1903-1983, Economic Journal, Vol. 105, No. 432. (Sep., 1995), pp. 1228–1243.
• Pasinetti, Luigi L. (1987), "Robinson, Joan Violet," The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 4, pp. 212–17, Macmillan

External links

• Joan Violet Robinson, 1903-1983 The New School
• Joan Robinson at Stanford, May 1974 Australian School of Business, 27 March 2009 - Listen to three hours of Joan Robinson at Stanford, 1974