Nicholas Kaldor
Nicholas Kaldor, Baron Kaldor (12 May 1908 - 30 September 1986) was one of the
foremost Cambridge economists in the post-war period. He developed the famous
"compensation" criteria called Kaldor-Hicks efficiency for welfare comparisons (1939),
derived the famous cobweb model and argued that there were certain regularities that
are observable as far as economic growth is concerned (Kaldor's growth laws).[1]
Life
Kaldor was educated in Budapest, Berlin, and at the London School of Economics,
where he subsequently became a lecturer. After service in World War II, he held a
senior post with the Economic Commission for Europe. From 1964, he was an advisor
to the Labour government of the UK and also advised several other countries, producing
some of the earliest memoranda regarding the creation of Value added tax. Inter alia,
Kaldor was considered, with his fellow-Hungarian Thomas Balogh, one of the
intellectual authors of the 1964-70 Wilson government's short-lived "selective
employment tax (SET)" designed to tax employment in service sectors while
subsidising employment in manufacturing. In 1966, he became professor of economics
at the University of Cambridge. In 1974, Kaldor was made a life peer as Baron Kaldor,
of Newnham in the City of Cambridge.
Married to Emma Goldsmith, a prominent figure in Cambridge city life, he had four
daughters, including Frances Stewart, Professor of Economic Development at the
University of Oxford, and Mary Kaldor, Professor of Human Security at the London
School of Economics.
Works
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The Case Against Technical Progress, 1932, Economica
The Determinateness of Static Equilibrium, 1934, RES
The Equilibrium of the Firm, 1934, EJ
Market Imperfection and Excess Capacity, 1935, Economica
Pigou on Money Wages in Relation to Unemployment, 1937, EJ
1939, Welfare propositions of economics and interpersonal comparisons of
utility. Economic Journal 49:549–52.
Speculation and Economic Stability, 1939, RES
Capital Intensity and the Trade Cycle, 1939, Economica
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A Model of the Trade Cycle, 1940, EJ
Professor Hayek and the Concertina Effect, 1942, Economica
The Relation of Economic Growth and Cyclical Fluctuations, 1954 EJ
An Expenditure Tax, 1955.
Alternative Theories of Distribution, 1956, RES
A Model of Economic Growth, 1957, EJ
Monetary Policy, Economic Stability, and Growth, 1958.
Economic Growth and the Problem of Inflation, 1959, Economica.
A Rejoinder to Mr. Atsumi and Professor Tobin, 1960, RES
Keynes's Theory of the Own-Rates of Interest, 1960, in Kaldor, 1960.
Essays on Value and Distribution, 1960.
Essays on Economic Stability and Growth, 1960.
Capital Accumulation and Economic Growth, 1961, in Lutz, editor, Theory of
Capital
A New Model of Economic Growth, with James A. Mirrlees, 1962, RES
The Case for a Commodity Reserve Currency, with A.G. Hart and J. Tinbergen,
1964, UNCTAD
Essays on Economic Policy, 1964, two volumes.
Causes of the Slow Rate of Economic Growth in the UK, 1966.
The Case for Regional Policies, 1970, Scottish JE.
The New Monetarism, 1970, Lloyds Bank Review
Conflicts in National Economic Objectives, 1970, EJ
The Irrelevance of Equilibrium Economics, 1972, EJ
What is Wrong with Economic Theory, 1975, QJE
Inflation and Recession in the World Economy, 1976, EJ
Equilibrium Theory and Growth Theory, 1977, in Boskin, editor, Economics and
Human Welfare.
Capitalism and Industrial Development, 1977, Cambridge JE
Further Essays on Economic Theory, 1978.
The Role of Increasing Returns, Technical Progress and Cumulative
Causation..., 1981, Economie Appliquee
Fallacies on Monetarism, 1981, Kredit und Kapital.
The Scourge of Monetarism, 1982.
The Role of Commodity Prices in Economic Recovery, 1983, Lloyds Bank
Review
Keynesian Economics After Fifty Years, 1983, in Trevithick and Worswick,
editors, Keynes and the Modern World
Economics Without Equilibrium, 1985.