# Edwin Cannan

Edwin Cannan (3 February 1861 – 8 April 1935) was a British economist and historian of economic thought. He taught at the London School of Economics from 1895 to 1926.

## Biography

Edwin Cannan was the younger son of David Alexander Cannan and artist Jane Dorothea Claude. His mother died at the age of 38 of tuberculosis in Madeira, Portugal 18 days after her son Edwin was born. He studied at Balliol College, Oxford.
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. 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.
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 favoured simplicity, clarity, and common sense in the exposition of economics. Cannan emphasised the institutional foundation of economic systems.
Cannan is buried at Wolvercote Cemetery Oxford, England.

## Major works

* The Duke of Saint Simon. Oxford and London: B.H. Blackwell; Simpkin, Marshall and Co. 1885. Retrieved 23 July 2023 – via Google Books.
* Elementary Political Economy. London: Henry Frowde. 1888. Retrieved 10 May 2018 – via Internet Archive.
* The Origin of the Law of Diminishing Returns, 1813-15, 1892, The Economic Journal (EJ).
* Ricardo in Parliament, 1894, EJ.
* 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.
* Cannan, Edwin, ed. (1896). "Preface, Introduction". Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms delivered in the University of Glasgow by Adam Smith and reported by a Student in 1763 (First ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Retrieved 12 May 2018 – via Internet Archive.
* The History of Local Rates in England. London, New York and Bombay: Longmans, Green and Co. 1896. Retrieved 22 July 2023 – via Internet Archive.
* "Preface, Introduction, Notes, Marginal Summary". An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. London: Methuen. 1904. Retrieved 12 May 2018 – via Online Library of Liberty.
* The Economic Outlook. London and Leipsic: T. Fisher Unwin. 1912. Retrieved 20 June 2023 – via Internet Archive.
* Wealth: A Brief Explanation of the Causes of Economic Welfare (3rd ed.). London: P. S. King and Son, Ltd. 1928 – via Internet Archive.; via Mises.org.
* Coal nationalisation; précis and evidence offered to the Coal Industry Commission. London: P.S. King & Son, Ltd. 1919 – via Internet Archive.
* Early History of the term "Capital", 1921, QJE.
* An Application of the Theoretical Apparatus of Supply and Demand to Units of Currency, 1921, EJ.
* Money: Its connexion with rising and falling prices (2nd ed.). London: P.S. King & Son, Ltd. 1920 – via Internet Archive.; 7th ed., 1932, via Mises.org.
* Monetary Reform, with J.M. Keynes, Addis and Milner, 1924, EJ
* An Economist's Protest. London: P.S. King & Son, Ltd. 1927. Retrieved 20 June 2023 – via Internet Archive.
* A Review of Economic Theory. New York: A.M. Kelley. 1929 – via Internet Archive.
* Modern Currency and the Regulation of Its Value. London: P.S. King & Son, Ltd. 1931 – via Internet Archive.
* Economic Scares. London: P.S. King & Son, Ltd. 1933 – via Internet Archive.
* Ebenstein, Alan, ed. (1998). Collected Works of Edwin Cannan in 8 volumes. London & New York: Routledge/Thoemmes Press. vol. 3