Edwin Cannan
Edwin Cannan, c. 1920
Born(1861-02-03)3 February 1861
Funchal, Madeira
Died8 April 1935(1935-04-08) (aged 74)
Bournemouth
Resting placeWolvercote Cemetery, Oxford
NationalityBritish
Spouse
Margaret Mary Cullen
​
​
(m. 1907)​
ChildrenDavid Cannan
Parent(s)David Alexander Cannan (father)
Jane Dorothea Claude (mother)
RelativesCharles Cannan (brother);[3]
May Wedderburn Cannan (niece)
Joanna Cannan (niece)
Gilbert Cannan
Academic career
InstitutionLondon School of Economics
FieldEconomics
Political Economy
History of Economic Thought
School or
tradition		classical liberalism
Alma materBalliol College
Other notable studentsArnold 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]

Biography

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]

Major works

Review of economic theory, 1929

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Robbins, Lionel (1971). Autobiography on an Economist. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan. pp. 81-83.
  2. ^ Neville Cain (1979). "Benham, Frederic Charles Courtenay (1900–1962)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Retrieved 29 December 2023.
  3. ^ a b 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.
  4. ^ Bowley, A. L. (June 1935). "Edwin Cannan: Obituary". The Economic Journal. 45 (178): 385. JSTOR 2224669.
  5. ^ "Professor Cannan: Obituary, An Orthodox Economist". The Times: 21. 9 April 1935.
  6. ^ 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.
  7. ^ 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.
  8. ^ 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.
  9. ^ 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.
  10. ^ 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.
  11. ^ Robbins, Lionel (June 1935). "A Student's Recollections of Edwin Cannan". The Economic Journal. 45 (178): 398. JSTOR 2224669.
  12. ^ 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.
  13. ^ Cannan, Edwin (1912). "The Practical Utility of Economic Science". The Economic Outlook. London; Leipsic: T. Fisher Unwin. pp. 172-194 – via Internet Archive.
  14. ^ 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.
  15. ^ 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.
  16. ^ 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.
  17. ^ 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. JSTOR 41792296.

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