Biography of economist

British economist (1842–1924)

For other people named Alfred Marshall, see Alfred Marshall (disambiguation).

Alfred MarshallFBA (26 July 1842 – 13 July 1924) was an English economist and one of the most influential economists of his time. His book Principles of Economics (1890) was the dominant economic textbook in England for many years. It brought the ideas of supply and demand, marginal utility, and costs of production into a coherent whole. He is known as one of the founders of neoclassical economics.

Life and career

Marshall was born at Bermondsey in London, second son of William Marshall (1812–1901), clerk and cashier at the Bank of England, and Rebecca (1817–1878), daughter of butcher Thomas Oliver, from whom, on her mother's death, she inherited property. William Marshall was a devout strict Evangelical, "author of an Evangelical epic in a sort of Anglo-Saxon language of his own invention which found some favour in its appropriate circles" and of a tract titled Men's Rights and Women's Duties. There are scholars who note that this strict upbringing wielded strong influence on Marshall's work such as how he favored the doctrines of philosophical idealism.

Marshall had two brothers and two sisters; a cousin was the economist Ralph Hawtrey. The Marshalls were a West Countryclerical family; Marshall's great-great-grandfather was "the Reverend William Marshall, half-legendary Herculean parson of Devonshire", famous for "twisting horseshoes with his hands" to scare "local blacksmiths into fearing that they blew their bellows for the devil". Marshall grew up in Clapham and was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School and St John's College, Cambridge, where he demonstrated an aptitude in mathematics, achieving the rank of Second Wrangler in the 1865 Cambridge Mathematical Tripos. Marshall experienced a m

Adam Smith was an 18th-century Scottish economist, philosopher, and author who is considered the father of modern economics. Smith argued against mercantilism and was a major proponent of laissez-faire economic policies. In his first book, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", Smith proposed the idea of an invisible hand—the tendency of free markets to regulate themselves using competition, supply and demand, and self-interest.

Biography

The recorded history of Smith's life begins at his baptism on June 5, 1723, in Kirkcaldy, Scotland. His exact birthdate is undocumented, but he was raised by his mother, Margaret Douglas, after the death of his father, Adam Smith. He attended the University of Glasgow at the age of 13 and attended Balliol College at Oxford University, where he studied European literature.

After returning to Scotland, Smith held a series of public lectures at the University of Edinburgh. The success of his lecture series helped him earn a professorship at Glasgow University in 1751. He eventually earned the position of Chair of Logic in 1751 and then Chair of Moral Philosophy in 1752. During his years spent teaching and working at Glasgow, Smith worked on getting some of his lectures published. His book, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", was eventually

John Maynard Keynes, c.1940  ©Keynes was a British economist and one of the most influential of the 20th century.

John Maynard Keynes was born on 5 June 1883 in Cambridge into a well-to-do academic family. His father was an economist and a philosopher, his mother became the town's first female mayor. He excelled academically at Eton as well as Cambridge University, where he studied mathematics. He also became friends with members of the Bloomsbury group of intellectuals and artists.

After graduating, Keynes went to work in the India Office, and simultaneously managed to work on a dissertation - often during office hours - which earned him a fellowship at King's College. In 1908, he quit the civil service and returned to Cambridge. Following the outbreak of World War One, Keynes joined the treasury, and in the wake of the Versailles peace treaty, he published 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace' in which he criticised the exorbitant war reparations demanded from a defeated Germany and prophetically predicted that it would foster a desire for revenge among Germans. This best-selling book made him world famous.

During the inter-war years, Keynes amassed a considerable personal fortune from the financial markets and, as bursar of King's College, greatly improved the college's financial position. He became a prominent arts patron and board member of a number of companies. In 1926, he married Lydia Lopokova, a Russian ballerina.

Keynes' best-known work, 'The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money', was published in 1936, and became a benchmark for future economic thought. It also secured his position as Britain's most influential economist, and with the advent of World War Two, he again worked for the treasury. In 1942, he was made a member of the house of lords.

During the war years, Keynes played a decisive role in the negotiations that were to shape the post-war international economic order. In 1944, he