Lionel Robbins

Lionel Charles Robbins (1898-1984) was one of the leading English economists of the twentieth century. His An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science (1932) is as an outstanding statement of the Misesian view of economic method; that is, namely, that economics is a social science and must advance its propositions by means of deductive reasoning and not through the methods used in the natural sciences. Robbins’ The Great Depression (1934) brilliantly applies the Austrian theory of the business cycle to explain the depression—which, he notes, was of unprecedented severity.

Latest work

Introduction by Professor Lionel Robbins

12/11/2017 Lionel Robbins

Narrated by Jim Vann.

The Twofold Roots of the Great Depression: Inflationism and Intervention

10/01/2010 Mises Daily Lionel Robbins

[From The Burden of Plenty (1935), edited By Graham Hutton.] I want to start by saying something about the phrase “poverty in plenty” of which we hear so much. I cannot help thinking that it may be...

The Economic Causes of War

08/10/1968 Lionel Robbins

Robbins’ analysis here presented has still a place in the rational discussion of the possible causes of war. It fits very well the period of history in regard to which the Marxian theories here discussed were originally elaborated.

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