Joan Robinson (1903-1983)
Joan Robinson was a distinguished economist, academic, and teacher of the 20th century, and was responsible for her contributions to microeconomics models, price theory, monetary policy, and Keynesian economics. One of her earliest books, The Economics of Imperfect Competition, Robinson was noted to have been the first to coin the term "monopsony" in print, and the text, in conjunction with Edward Chamberlain's Theory of Monopolistic Competition, sparked discussion of imperfect competition, its implications for the market, firms, and equilibrium, as well as eliciting a focus on firms as opposed to markets. Her time as a Cambridge professor acquainted her with the prominent economist John Maynard Keynes, and in the decades following, she became a leading interpreter of Keynesian theories while simultaneously pushing for his analysis to be extended outside of its original scope. Late into her career, she would further observe, analyze, and expound the socialist economies of North Korea and most notably, China, following up on her experiences during WWII where she would visit the Soviet Union as part of her work with the British wartime government and her notable essay on Marxian economics in 1942, which had, at that time, renewed debate over his ideas.
Before taking this course, I had never heard of Robinson, being unfamiliar with Keynesian theories and completely unaware of her significant contributions to the contemporary microeconomics models taught in high school. I think her work with imperfect competition, especially monopsonies, and the resulting focus on the firm as opposed to the market will very much be relevant for this course's discussion of organizations and the extrinsic incentives that shape the relationships among employees and employers within an organization.
References
"Joan Robinson." Econ Wikis-MBorg. 2010. Econwikis-mborg.wikispaces.com. 4 Sep. 2015 <http://econwikis-mborg.wikispaces.com/>.
"Joan Robinson." New World Encyclopedia. 2008. NewWorldEncyclopedia.org. 4 Sep. 2015 <www.newworldencyclopedia.org>.
"Joan Robinson." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2014. Britannica.com. 4 Sep. 2015 <http://www.britannica.com/>.
"Joan Violet Maurice Robinson." Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 4 Sep. 2015 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.
Note that there is a link tool in the Blogger Editor. You can use it to make live links in your posts, rather than give urls which can't be clicked on.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to see that my approach with aliases has expanded your education on the important economists. Joan Robinson is a name that should be known by all economics students.
Apologies for the dead links, I had formed a habit of destroying them in bibliographies because of Microsoft's pesky auto formatting and papers were submitted in print. I have made the links live.
DeletePerhaps I'm looking in all the wrong places, but there doesn't seem to be much about Joan Robinson. Even her Wikipedia page gives a certain shallow feeling of "bullet points from the life of Joan Robinson." Which I thought was a shame, with all that she had accomplished could warrant more depth. Perhaps I am setting my expectations aloft with ideals, or perhaps this is the reality of gender inequality in both the academic and professional worlds.