Edwin Cannan

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British economist and economic historian

title: "Edwin Cannan" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1861-births", "1935-deaths", "people-from-funchal", "alumni-of-balliol-college,-oxford", "academics-of-the-london-school-of-economics", "british-economists", "historians-of-economic-thought", "british-expatriates-in-portugal", "burials-at-wolvercote-cemetery"] description: "British economist and economic historian" topic_path: "economics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Cannan" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary British economist and economic historian ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox economist"]

Field	Value
school_tradition	classical liberalism
image	Edwin Cannan.jpg
caption	Edwin Cannan, c. 1920
birth_date
birth_place	Funchal, Madeira, Portugal
death_date
death_place	Bournemouth, England
nationality	British
resting_place	Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford
parents	David Alexander Cannan (father)
Jane Dorothea Claude (mother)
spouse
children	David Cannan
relatives	Charles Cannan (brother);
May Wedderburn Cannan (niece)
Joanna Cannan (niece)
Gilbert Cannan
field	Economics
Political Economy
History of Economic Thought
alma_mater	Balliol College, Oxford
institution	London School of Economics
notable_students	Dr. B.R. Ambedkar
Arnold Plant
Lionel Robbins
Theodore Gregory
William Harold Hutt
Frederic Benham
::

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

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Cannan_-_Review_of_economic_theory,1929-_5784963.tif" caption="''Review of economic theory'', 1929"] ::

The Origin of the Law of Diminishing Returns, 1813-15, 1892, The Economic Journal (EJ).
Ricardo in Parliament, 1894, EJ.
; via Mises.org.
Early History of the term "Capital", 1921, QJE.
An Application of the Theoretical Apparatus of Supply and Demand to Units of Currency, 1921, EJ.
; 7th ed., 1932, via Mises.org.
Monetary Reform, with J.M. Keynes, Addis and Milner, 1924, EJ
vol. 3

Notes

References

Robbins, Lionel. (1971). "Autobiography on an Economist". Macmillan.
Neville Cain. (1979). "Benham, Frederic Charles Courtenay (1900–1962)". [[Australian Dictionary of Biography]].
(1935). "Edwin Cannan 1860-1935". Economica.
Bowley, A. L.. (June 1935). "Edwin Cannan: Obituary". The Economic Journal.
(9 April 1935). "Professor Cannan: Obituary, An Orthodox Economist". The Times.
Robbins, Lionel. (1970). "The Evolution of Modern Economic Theory and Other Papers on History of Economic Thought". Palgrave Macmillan.
(1986). "Who's Who in Economics: A Biographical Dictionary of Major Economists 1700-1986". Wheatsheaf Books Limited.
(1932). "Who's Who, 1932: An Annual Biographical Dictionary with which is Incorporated "Men and Women of The Time"". A & C Black Limited and The Macmillan Company.
Tribe, Keith. (2019). "The Palgrave Companion to LSE Economics". Palgrave Macmillan.
Cannan, Edwin. (1894). "A History of the Theories of Production and Distribution in English Political Economy from 1776 to 1848". Rivington, Percival & Co..
Robbins, Lionel. (June 1935). "A Student's Recollections of Edwin Cannan". The Economic Journal.
Cannan, Edwin. (September 1932). "An Essay on the Significance of Economic Science. By LIONEL ROBBINS. (Pp. xii + 141. Macmillan. 7s. 6d.)". The Economic Journal.
Hayek, F.A.. (1967). "Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics". Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Cannan, Edwin. (1912). "The Economic Outlook". T. Fisher Unwin.
Coase, Ronald. (1995). "Essays on Economics and Economists". University of Chicago Press.
Hodgson, Geoffrey M.. (2001). "How Economics Forgot History". Routledge.
Fay, C.R.. (June 1937). "Edwin Cannan: The Tritute of a Friend". [[The Economic Record]].
Ralf, Dahrendorf. (12 June 1927). "News and Views in Literary London". Oxford University Press.
Hayek, F.A.. (November 1929). "Edwin Cannan: An Ecconomist's Protest. XX und 438 S. London: P.S. King & Son, Ltd. 1927". Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie / Journal of Economics.

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