Lionel Robbins
1898 – 1984 British Economist, LSE professor
LSE economist who built its economics department and defined economics as the study of scarcity.
- Affiliations
- London School of Economics; author of the Robbins Report on higher education.
Lionel Robbins became professor of economics at the LSE in 1929 and built the department into a leading centre of theory. His 1932 'Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science' defined economics as the study of how people allocate scarce means among competing ends, a definition that shaped teaching for decades. He recruited Friedrich Hayek to the school in 1931 and championed free markets, though he later moved closer to Keynesian views. In the 1960s he chaired the Robbins Committee, whose report led to a major expansion of British universities.
Connections
- associate of Friedrich Hayek — Brought Hayek to the LSE and was his ally in the economics wars.
- associate of Friedrich Hayek — Robbins brought him to the LSE and was a close ally in the economics wars.
- rival of John Maynard Keynes — Opposed Keynes in the 1930s, though the two later worked together on wartime policy.
In the timeline
- 1929 Lionel Robbins appointed head of the LSE economics department department head
- 1929 Lionel Robbins takes the chair of economics appointed professor
- 1931 Friedrich Hayek arrives at the LSE mentioned
- 1931 Robbins recruits Friedrich Hayek recruiter
- 1932 Robbins defines the science of economics author