Edwin Cannan | |
---|---|
![]() Edwin Cannan, c. 1920 | |
Born | |
Died | 8 April 1935 | (aged 74)
Resting place | Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford |
Nationality | British |
Spouse |
Margaret Mary Cullen
(m. 1907) |
Children | David Cannan |
Parent(s) | David Alexander Cannan (father) Jane Dorothea Claude (mother) |
Relatives | Charles Cannan (brother);[3] May Wedderburn Cannan (niece) Joanna Cannan (niece) Gilbert Cannan |
Academic career | |
Institution | London School of Economics |
Field | Economics Political Economy History of Economic Thought |
School or tradition | classical liberalism |
Alma mater | Balliol College |
Other notable students | Arnold 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]
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]
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]
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 favored simplicity, clarity, and common sense in the exposition of economics.[12][13] Cannan emphasised the institutional foundation of economic systems.[14][15]