Warren Young

The early reactions to Value and capital: critics, critiques and correspondence in comparative perspective

The reception of Hicks Value and capitalis not as well documented as other important economics books of that period. In this article I shall analysis the main reviews of Value and capitalwith special emphasis on the critial reviews. Reference will be made to Hicks unpublished correspondence with Hawtrey, Kaldor and Robertson. Finally a consideration of the important issues of communicabilityand relevance will be undertaken.

Wartime Activities and Post-War Reconstruction, 1940 to 1947

With the outbreak of war in September 1939, economic research at Oxford quickly transformed itself into war-related research.1 This transformation took place under the watchful eyes of the SSRC at first, and then it established a smaller body, the Wartime Research Committee, whose members came primarily from the Nuffield College Social Reconstruction Survey Committee and the sub-committee appointed to oversee the OIS. The task of the Wartime Research Committee was to coordinate the economic research being undertaken by the OIS, the Nuffield College Survey, the Joint International Committee, and the Courtauld Inquiry, of which more below.2

Epilogue: The ‘New Generation’ of Oxford Economists and the ‘New’ Oxford Economics

What we have described above as a distinctly Oxford style of economic inquiry, that is an eclectic approach to theory grounded in empiricism did not fade away with the retirement of Hicks from the Drummond Professorship in 1965 and Harrod from the Nuffield Readership in 1967, for both remained quite active, as can be seen in their respective books and articles. Moreover, a ‘new generation’ of Oxford economists had emerged to take on the task of continuing the theoretical and empirical research programmes developed by their predecessors, and even expanded their activities into new areas of economic inquiry. Indeed, it may be said that the path set by Harrod, Hicks and Meade in the 1930s not only influenced many economists outside Oxford, but the wide scope of their activities from the 1930s onward enabled the ‘new generation’ of Oxford economists to both refine and expand their respective theoretical approaches and the empirical research their work stimulated.

Grounded Empiricism, 1931 to 1939

Up to the early 1930s, the development of economics teaching had been the outcome of the Oxford college’s response to the rising number of students reading for the PPE examinations. Things began to change when, in February 1931, the Hebdomadal Council decided to conduct a review of the future financial needs of the University. The various faculties of the University were asked to submit a list of the developments, arranged in order of importance, necessary for the progress of the areas of study for which they were responsible. In this context, the Social Studies Board undertook a survey of the needs of the Honour School of PPE, including the needs of those faculty members lecturing in economics. The outcome of this was the Board’s recommendation that a Readership in Statistics and a Chair in Finance and Currency be established immediately, and that a Chair in Economic Organisation would also be needed. The Board also noted that the proper development of economic studies at Oxford required the establishment of a Department or Institute of Economics furnished with equipment and apparatus for statistical research. The Council considered these recommendations and made a report to the Congregation during June 1931, in which it recommended the immediate establishment of the Readership in Statistics and the future establishment of a Chair of Finance and Currency. The Council also noted in the same report that facilities for research in economics could be obtained by utilising vacant rooms in the new building of the Agricultural Economics Research Institute.1

Reformulation and Revival, Retrospection and Revision, 1948 Onwards

The years 1948 to 1965 marked the renewal of interest in areas of economic theory and empirical investigation dealt with by Oxford economists in the prewar period, and the reformulation and revival of these theories and studies. The decade from 1966 to 1975, for its part, was marked by reevaluation and retrospection with regard to both pre and early post-war Oxford economics. Finally, the period from 1976 up to the present has been distinguished by revision of previously held views regarding the contributions of Oxford economists and the development of Oxford economics — both on their own account and by new efforts in tracing the origins of their ideas and the developmental process that affected them.

Contributions and Controversies, 1922 to 1990

The contributions of the generations of Oxford economists of the prewar (1922 to 1939), wartime (1940 to 1945), and post-war (1946 onwards) periods were significant, highly original and many times critical of neoclassical theory. And, as in the case of such work, these contributions were accompanied by debate both within the economics profession and amongst Oxford economists themselves. In order to do justice to the overall scope of Oxford economics during these periods, we will not limit ourselves only to the contributions that engendered critical debate among ‘mainstream’ economists. Indeed, some of the most interesting and thought-provoking work at Oxford also took place in what can be called the ‘non-mainstream’ and ‘heterodox’ areas of economic inquiry, conducted by individuals who ranged from formally-trained or self-taught economists, in most cases, to in one instance at least, an influential — albeit somewhat forgotten — ‘monetary crank’. This demarcation follows from the eclectic and path-breaking tradition that characterised Oxford economics and economists of these periods. Indeed, even up to the time of his death, Hicks was working on what he called a new approach to markets and money. Thus Sayers’s comment on the interwar Oxford economists is also appropriate for the Oxford economists of the post-war era as well: In the second of the inter-war decades Oxford had at least its fair share of the rising generation of English economists … These economists in no sense formed a ‘school of thought:’ they were drawn from surprisingly varied sources and had scarcely had time to do more than understand and explain work originating in the older homes of economic thought. But to suppose that they were content to find illumination in traditional doctrine would be a grave injustice: they were also keenly interested in putting traditional doctrine to the test of practical experience and in arriving at practical maxims for economic policy.1

From Oxford Political Economy to Oxford Economics, 1922 to 1939

The 1920–21 academic year still found Oxford without a ‘School’ of Economics in the Oxford sense, and yet the number of lectures offered in economics was significantly greater than at any time in the previous two decades. Moreover, the core of economists stood at five — Edgeworth, Penson, H. Clay, J.A. Todd, and F.W. Ogilvie — a number higher than during the years prior to the First World War, while the core of economic historians stood at two — Price and Lennard. In addition, C.V. Butler, who was a tutor at St Anne’s College since 1914, now became active and began giving lectures. Finally, the distribution of lecture topics still favoured history and application while the involvement of historians and philosophers in the teaching of economics and economic history remained strong. Thus the prewar tradition of Oxford political economy seemed alive, well, and getting stronger at the dawn of the interwar period. However, the creation of the Final Honour School of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) set forces into motion that would result in a complete turnover in the makeup of the core economists at Oxford and thereby in the decline of the pre First World War Oxford approach to political economy.1

High Theory, 1924 to 1939: Harrod, Meade, and the Cross-Fertilisation of Ideas in Oxford

In his review of Shackle’s The Years of High Theory, Harrod focused upon the problematic nature of the development of economic thought between the publication of Keynes’s A Tract on Monetary Reform (1923) and his own ‘Essay in Dynamic Theory’ (1939a). The issues Harrod raised in his review included problems of priority, multiple discovery and utilisation of economic concepts and tools, in addition to the ‘insularity’ of some Cambridge economists as against the ‘open-mindedness’ of Oxford economists and the cross-fertilisation of ideas between them and other Cambridge and London-based economists over the period. According to Harrod, ‘there were many unresolved difficulties’ and ‘unsettled questions’ regarding: (a) the development of the theory of imperfect competition and its relation to the marginal revenue concept discovered by Harrod; (b) the link between these theoretical developments, Keynes’s early ideas, and Harrod’s own approach to them; (c) the utilisation by Harrod of the ‘indifference curve’ approach discovered by Edgeworth, even before Hicks and Allen; and finally (d) the insularity of Cambridge economists as against the openmindedness of their Oxford counterparts, a point which Harrod had originally made in his 1967 review essay on the Wicksell Memorial Lectures volume, in which he cited Edgeworth as an example of an Oxford economist with an in-depth knowledge of the works of foreign economists, and one who was also engaged in extensive correspondence with them; and this, in contrast to the ostensible insularity of Marshall and other Cambridge economists.1

Oxford Pedagogy, 1922 to 1939: Tutorials and Lectures

In his 1955 Presidential address to the Royal Economic Society, Lionel Robbins dealt with ‘the teaching of economics in schools and universities’. After surveying the problem at the secondary level of education, Robbins went on to outline what, in his view, constituted the appropriate degree structure and subject matter for economics — both as a general and a specialised area of instruction and learning — at the undergraduate level. Not surprisingly the honours degree structure and undergraduate curriculum he recommended closely resembled the Oxford PPE approach developed over three decades earlier.

Prologue: Before PPE

Economics at Oxford in 1900 was in a curious state. Although the Drummond Chair in Political Economy was established in 1825, economics, or political economy as it was then called, did not have an independent role in the undergraduate curriculum until the operation of the Honour School of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) in the Michaelmas term of 1921. Instead, between 1825 and 1872, it was offered as a minor optional subject in the Honour School of Literae Humaniores. With the establishment of the Honour School of Modem History in 1872, it was also possible to take economics as an optional subject there as well. Initially, the subject areas offered in political economy were quite limited, but this expanded over time as the number of students entering the Modern History School and taking the economics option grew in the 1880s, in particular as a result of the interesting lectures offered by T.H. Green and Arnold Toynbee.1