Edwin Cannan

Edwin Cannan
Edwin Cannan, c. 1920
Born(1861-02-03)3 February 1861
Funchal, Madeira, Portugal
Died8 April 1935(1935-04-08) (aged 74)
Bournemouth, England
Resting place
Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford
Spouse
Margaret Mary Cullen
​
​
(m. 1907)​
ChildrenDavid Cannan
Parent(s)David Alexander Cannan (father)
Jane Dorothea Claude (mother)
RelativesCharles Cannan (brother);
May Wedderburn Cannan (niece)
Joanna Cannan (niece)
Gilbert Cannan
Academic background
EducationBalliol College, Oxford
Academic work
DisciplineEconomics
Political Economy
History of Economic Thought
School or tradition
classical liberalism
InstitutionsLondon School of Economics
Notable students
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar
Arnold Plant
Lionel Robbins
Theodore Gregory
William Harold Hutt
Frederic Benham

Edwin Cannan (3 February 1861 – 8 April 1935) was a British economist and historian of economic thought. He taught at the London School of Economics from 1895 to 1926.

Biography

Edwin Cannan was the younger son of David Alexander Cannan and artist Jane Dorothea Claude. His mother died at the age of 38 of tuberculosis in Madeira, Portugal 18 days after her son Edwin was born. He studied at Balliol College, Oxford.

As a follower of William Stanley Jevons, Edwin Cannan is perhaps best known for his logical dissection and critique of classical economic theory in his famous 1894 tract A History of the Theories of Production and Distribution. 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 tenure as professor of political economy from 1907 onwards, 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" (i.e. Austrian) ideas.

Though Cannan, in his early years as an economist, was a critic of classical economics and an ally of interventionists (he read an early paper to the Fabian Society in 1889), 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. Cannan emphasised the institutional foundation of economic systems. Cannan opposed the views of Thomas Robert Malthus on overpopulation, arguing that an "optimum population" from the maximum productivity point of view will vary.

Cannan became president of the Royal Economic Society in 1932.

He is buried at Wolvercote Cemetery Oxford, England.

Major works

Review of economic theory, 1929

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 "CANNAN, Edwin". 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.
  2. ↑ Robbins, Lionel (1971). Autobiography on an Economist. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan. pp. 81-83.
  3. ↑ Neville Cain (1979). "Benham, Frederic Charles Courtenay (1900–1962)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Retrieved 29 December 2023.
  4. ↑ "Edwin Cannan 1860-1935". Economica. 2 (6): 127. 1935. ISSN 0013-0427. JSTOR 2548674.
  5. ↑ Bowley, A. L. (June 1935). "Edwin Cannan: Obituary". The Economic Journal. 45 (178): 385. doi:10.1093/ej/45.178.385. JSTOR 2224669.
  6. ↑ "Professor Cannan: Obituary, An Orthodox Economist". The Times: 21. 9 April 1935.
  7. 1 2 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.
  8. ↑ 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.
  9. ↑ 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.
  10. ↑ 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.
  11. ↑ 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.
  12. ↑ Robbins, Lionel (June 1935). "A Student's Recollections of Edwin Cannan". The Economic Journal. 45 (178): 398. JSTOR 2224669.
  13. ↑ 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. doi:10.2307/2224025. JSTOR 2224025.
  14. ↑ 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.
  15. ↑ Cannan, Edwin (1912). "The Practical Utility of Economic Science". The Economic Outlook. London; Leipsic: T. Fisher Unwin. pp. 172-194 – via Internet Archive.
  16. ↑ 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.
  17. ↑ 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.
  18. ↑ Langford, C.M. "Cannan, Edwin". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
  19. ↑ "Prof. Edwin Cannan, Economist, Is Dead; Former Dean at University of London Was the Author of Several Publications". The New York Times. 9 April 1935. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
  20. ↑ Fay, C.R. (June 1937). "Edwin Cannan: The Tritute of a Friend". The Economic Record. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4932.1937.tb02811.x.
  21. ↑ 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.
  22. ↑ 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. doi:10.1007/BF01311543. JSTOR 41792296.