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Marshall, Alfred

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
English economist and pioneer of neo-classical economics . He was the dominant figure in British economics from the 1890s right up to the 1930s, and his Principles of Economics (1890) still has the power to fascinate and excite the reader. On the other hand, his moral zeal and Victorian piety have repelled some commentators. He was an excellent mathematician, but he hid his mathematics away in appendices because he hoped to be read by business executives. Marshall made many original contributions to static equilibrium theory and yet hankered all his life for a dynamic theory that he was unable to produce, even going so far as to proclaim that biology and not mechanics is ‘the Mecca of the economist’. His one grand theme was that price is always determined by demand and supply (cut by both ‘blades of the scissors’), and yet he struggled against all the evidence to argue that this had of course been well understood by the great classical economists before him. He was a firm believer in…
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Full text Article Marshall, Alfred, 1842-1924

From Routledge Dictionary of Economics
The Cambridge economist who dominated economics in the UK from the late nineteenth century to the 1930s. After graduating in mathematics from Cambridge in 1865 and becoming a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, he turned to the study of ethics and psychology. It was his passionate interest in…
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Full text Article Marshall, Alfred (1842–1924).

From The Oxford Companion to British History
Born in Bermondsey (London), and educated at St John's College, Cambridge, Marshall took the mathematics tripos (1862–5). By 1868 he was college lecturer in moral sciences at St John's College, with particular responsibility for teaching political economy. His reputation as the greatest British…
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Full text Article ECONOMIST

From Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations
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Full text Article THEORIST

From Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations
Austrian physicist A friend of mine has defined the practical man as one who understands nothing of theory and the theoretician as an enthusiast who understands nothing at all. Theoretical Physics and Philosophical Problems. Selected Writings On the Significance of Theories (p. 33 ) Reidel…
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Full text Article Marshall

From Merriam-Webster's Collegiate(R) Dictionary Full text Article Biographical Names
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Full text Article neoclassical economics

From Collins Dictionary of Sociology
the approach to economic analysis, arising especially from the work of Alfred Marshall (1842-1924) and Leon Walras (1834-1910). This dominated ECONOMICS between 1870 and 1930. It replaced the explicitly sociopolitical analysis, in terms of land, capital and labour, which characterized the work of…
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THE BIGGER THE FACTORY, THE LOWER THE COST: ECONOMIES OF SCALE
IN CONTEXT FOCUS Markets and firms KEY THINKER Alfred Marshall (1842–1924) BEFORE 1776 Adam Smith explains how large firms can lower unit costs through labor division. 1848 John Stuart Mill suggests that only large firms can adapt successfully to certain business changes, and that this can lead to…
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Full text Article factors of production

From Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Political Thought
Defined by the economist Alfred Marshall (1842–1924) as ‘the things required for making a commodity’, they are often grouped by economists into land , labour and capital , on the assumption that these three are roughly independent factors involved in production, and that no one of them is effective…
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Full text Article economics

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Social science devoted to studying the production, distribution, and consumption of wealth. It consists of the disciplines of microeconomics (the study of individual producers, consumers, or markets), and macroeconomics , (the study of whole economies or systems – in particular, areas such as…
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Full text Article INVENTION

From Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations
English lawyer, statesman, and essayist The human mind is often so awkward and ill-regulated in the career of invention that is at first diffident, and then despises itself. For it appears at first incredible that any such discovery should be made, and when it has been made, it appears incredible…
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