Joan Robinson was among the most influential economic thinkers of the 20th century, and one of the first women to establish herself in the discipline. Number 44 Kensington Park Gardens, which bears her plaque, is the home where she undertook the depression-era voluntary work that was pivotal to her decision to study economics.

Early life

Joan Violet Maurice was born on 30 October 1903, the third of five children of army officer Frederick Barton Maurice and Margaret Helen Marsh. While at school, she did social work among unemployed people, and this led to her interest in economics. Much later, she wrote: ‘I had some vague hope that it would help me to understand poverty, and how it could be cured.’ She studied economics at Girton College, Cambridge but was not permitted to formally graduate (as was the case for all women at Cambridge until 1948).

In July 1926, Joan married fellow economist Austin Robinson. Two months later, they left for India, where Joan drafted a report on relations between Britain and the princely states. This marked the beginning of a lifelong interest in India and developing economies. The Robinsons returned to Cambridge in 1928 and had two daughters, Ann and Barbara.

Early writing

Though without a formal university position, Joan Robinson began publishing articles on economics in the early 1930s. One of her early pieces drew from Austrian economist Gottfried Haberier the comment: ‘The Christian name sounds like a woman’s but the article seems to be much too clever for a woman.’

Robinson’s first book, Economics of Imperfect Competition was published in 1933. Her critique of the ‘laissez-faire’ economics of then-iconic Alfred Marshall considered factors such as the limits on a given firm’s capacity for expansion. The book was reprinted many times, became an accepted part of economic analysis and brought Robinson international recognition.

Cambridge Circus

Robinson was also rewarded with an assistant lectureship in economics at Cambridge, followed by a full lectureship in 1937. As part of the ‘Cambridge Circus’ of young economists, Robinson was influenced by colleagues including Piero Sraffa and Richard Kahn. John Maynard Keynes strongly valued her input and sent her proofs of his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936). Robinson became a cheerleader for this work and wrote Introduction to the Theory of Employment (1937) as an introduction for students. Accessible analogies were a characteristic of her work.

Robinson developed an interest in Marx, publishing her Essay on Marxian Economics in 1942. She defined herself not as a Marxist but as a left-wing Keynesian; whilst she felt that the private profit system ‘has to its credit stupendous achievements in the development of technique’, she felt that laissez-faire economics simply enshrined existing privilege.

Robinson’s analysis – that market imperfections led not only to inefficiencies and waste but also, through a lack of effective demand, to unemployment – was picked up by others, including the future Labour chancellor Hugh Dalton.

Later career

After the war, Robinson’s work moved towards analysis of long-term economic growth. Her best-known work, The Accumulation of Capital (1956) led to a controversy about the measurement and meaning of ‘capital’. Robinson’s thoughts on this continue to be valued.

Robinson also wrote about the economics of the developing world, including Kim Il-Sung’s North Korea and Mao’s regime in China, which she covered sympathetically in The Cultural Revolution in China (1969). On finding she had been fed misleading information by the Chinese authorities, she later admitted to having been too uncritical.

In 1949, Robinson was promoted to Reader at Cambridge, and then in 1965 became professor. She became a Fellow of Newnham College in 1962 and became the first honorary Fellow of King’s College in 1979.

Robinson was widely expected to win the Nobel Prize in 1975 but was overlooked. This has been ascribed to her supportive attitude towards Maoist China.

There were two brief interruptions to her career owing to psychological problems, in 1938 and 1953; the latter owed much to her distress at what seemed the likely imminence of war. In the post-war era she was highly critical of the arms race and a supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). Robinson was also a strict vegetarian, and slept in an unheated shed, open at one side, at the bottom of her Cambridge garden.

Death and legacy

Robinson retired in 1971 but continued to work for around a decade. After slipping on ice, Robinson spent several months in a coma, and died on 5 August 1983.

Robinson has been described by Chambers Biographical Dictionary as ‘one of the most influential economic theorists of her time’. She wished to be seen as an economist, rather than ‘a woman economist’. Even so, it remains worthy of note that Robinson was one of the first women to achieve academic prominence in economics, and did so while raising a family, too.

BLUE PLAQUE

The Blue Plaque at 44 Kensington Park Gardens marks the home where Joan Robinson lived with her parents and sisters from 1919. While living here and attending St Paul’s School, she undertook the voluntary work among unemployed people during the post-war depression that was pivotal in her decision to study economics. She also met girls from settlement schools in deprived areas at this time and kept in touch with them into later life. She was recorded at this address in the 1921 census and her 1926 wedding certificate gives 44 Kensington Park Gardens as her address; Cambridge was her permanent base thereafter.