Biographical Memoirs Volume 64 (1994) / Chapter Skim
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Abba Ptachya Lerner
Abba Ptachya Lerner
Pages 208-231
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that of his classmates, as well as an invaluable sense of what it was like out there in the Real World. At LSE Lerner found a subject to his measure and a benign appreciative environment that gave full play to an extraordinary natural talent.
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Joan Robinson ran the show, assisted! from time to time by husband Austin, R
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In 1936 he was asked by the International Labour Office to write a review essay on the General Theory; the resulting article (1936) remains one of the most limpid discussions of the Keynesian argument, clearer than that of the inventor himself.
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But his achievements were counterbalanced in British eyes by religious origin, stress' en c! manners: Abba Lerner, few from Eastern Europe and then the brick and grit of the East End, bare feet in sancials (because, he said, his feet sweat)
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in 1934, Lerner's first year as a graduate student. This revolutionary departure from the prevalent view of limiting cases of perfect competition anct perfect monopoly was written before Edward Chamberlin and Joan Robinson's books on monopolistic competition became available.
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In the above-citec! piece on "The Concept of Monopoly," for example, Samuelson found "clear recognition that Marshall's dictum, that one should tax increasing cost industries to subsidize decreasing (or constant!
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Samuelson's demonstration found its way to the flesh of Lionel Robbins, who recalled that he had heard the same argument from a student in seminar some fifteen years earlier; and he still had a copy of that seminar paper, by Abba Lerner. At Robbins's urging, Lerner published the piece as originally written: "Factor Prices ant!
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He thought that to let even one village grocer subsist wouIci be to invite the return of capitalism.) In anticipation of this contest between public and private, I,erner devoted a series of articles to those principles that should govern socialist planners and economic managers en cl enable them to duplicate the advantages of a free, competitive market.
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From there it takes up such matters as efficient allocation in the short and long run, rent, economic surplus, taxation and fiscal policy, investment, international tracle and finance, and a gloss on Keynesian analysis the thorny link between unemployment and inflation. Scitovsky's appreciation of this ambitious work will serve to situate it in the history of economic thought: "By comparing Lerner's book to Pigou's Economics of Welfare (1920)
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The kinc! of demonstration provided by Lerner is testimony to the power of economics to pose questions clearly, specify conditions, and generate answers within these constraints, but testimony also to the limitations of such reasoning as constraints are relaxed and complications introduced.
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Lerner, however, picking up on the summary Keynesian prescription of deficit spending, argued that governments should not be concerned with conventional morality but rather should consider only the results of their actions. The aim of government spending and taxing, he saicl, shouIc!
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He pointed out that the same high income tax that recluces gain provides a clecluction in the event of loss; net return may in fact be improved thanks to tax offsets. Scitovsky notes with surprise that "neither Lerner nor any of his critics .
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" To which Keynes replied: "It's the art of statesmanship to tell lies, but they must be plausible lies" (ibid.~. (Kenneth Arrow heard a somewhat different version from Paul Baran, who remembers Keynes's reply as, "Mr.
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That's war for you. (In Ottoman times there were no public firefighters in Constantinople: private companies ran to fires and negotiated competitively with owners the price of intervention.
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To make his point to his fellow economists, Lerner stood outside the entrance to the large hall where Robert Solow was about to cleliver his presidential Buttress to the American Economic Association and passed out flyers. The proposal was probably seen once again as politically impractical; and, in fact, the federal government has always been very chary of increasing the price of gasoline by levying higher taxes.
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want to grow faster must buy credits from those that are growing slower. Meanwhile, to encourage hiring, each new employee entitles the firm to a free credit equal to his wage in previous employment multiplied by the new firm's ratio in the previous year between net sales and wage bill.
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Abba Lerner diect in October 1982. He was survived by his wife, Daliah; a son, Lionel, and daughter, Marion, both by an earlier marriage; sisters Hannah (Banerji)
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, London School of Economics PROFESSIONAL RECORD 1935-37 Assistant Lecturer, London School of Economics 1939-40 Lecturer in-Economics, Columbia University (fall term) 1940-42 Assistant Professor, University of Kansas City 1942-46 Associate Professor, New School for Social Research 1946-47 Professor, New School for Social Research 1947-59 Professor, Roosevelt University 1959-65 Professor, Michigan State University 1965-71 Professor, University of California, Berkeley 1971-84 Professor, Florida State University VISITING PROFESSOR 1938 (spring)
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clences 1963-64 Vice-President, American Economic Association 1964 Regents Lecturer, University of California, Santa Barbara 1966 Distinguished Fellow, American Economic Association 1970 Honorary Fellow, London School of Economics 1973 President, University Centers for National Alternatives 1978 D.Sc. (honorary)
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June:2-8. 1943 Functional finance and the federal debt.
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New York: McGraw-Hill. 1952 Factor prices and international trade.
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1983 Selected Economic Writings of Abba P Lerner, ed.
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