Abstract
In this Introduction we reconstruct the context in which the articles chosen for this collection came out, bringing to light the network of professional and personal relationships in which Kahn’s thought developed and making explicit the problems and questions to which he sought solutions and answers. We have therefore used all those fragments of knowledge, also drawn from unpublished works and correspondence, that were helpful in placing these writings by Kahn in their context, but we have also sought to highlight their relevance to contemporary economic theory and policy.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Sraffa’s Lectures are in the Sraffa papers, Trinity College Library, Cambridge, and are now available online (SRAF/D/2/1). We also have the notes taken by Kahn and his essays written for the course in the Kahn papers, King’s College Library, henceforth given with the catalogue reference number (RFK/3/3/359–84).
- 3.
Of Shove’s course, we are left with the notes taken by John Saltmarch in his academic year 1928–1929. See in particular the section entitled “Partial or Conditional Monopoly”. For a discussion of Shove’s role in the development of the theory of imperfect competition, see Carabelli (2005).
- 4.
- 5.
See the letter from Joan Robinson (henceforth JVR) to Richard Kahn (henceforth RFK) of 24.1.1933 (RFK papers, 13/90/1/75).
- 6.
See E. Chamberlin’s letters to RFK of 3.8.1930 and 12.9.1930 in RFK papers, 1/13/19–25, and Chamberlin (1961, p. 513n).
- 7.
RFK to JVR, 9.2.1933 (RFK papers, 13/90/1/100): “I am having lunch with Chamberlin, whose book on Monopolistic Competition is just about to come out, in fact in two days”. JVR’s letter to RFK, dated 3.3.1933 (RFK papers, 13/90/1/169), is also interesting, concerning the coincidence of the “discoveries” on imperfect competition in those years: “Chamberlin’s book has turned up. Very competitively Monopolistic as Piero [Sraffa] says. I find myself enjoying the coincidences without any base emotions, but I must not read it thoroughly or the temptation to put in [i.e. in The Economics of Imperfect Competition] footnotes will be too great.”
- 8.
In the text reference is made to Robinson’s book under the title The Monopoly Analysis of Value, which was only changed to the definitive one, The Economics of Imperfect Competition, in January 1933. See JVR’s letter to RFK of 24.1.1933.
- 9.
This unpublished book can be found in Kahn’s archives (RFK papers, 2/8–2/9). On this, see also Marcuzzo and Rosselli (2008).
- 10.
It was about this article that JVR wrote to RFK, in a letter of 11.2.1933: “Austin [Robinson], who has yet only just glanced at it, is very keen that it should be published as the first manifesto of the Trumpington Street School. (After reading it he repeats this view)” (see RFK papers, 13/90/116).
- 11.
On the cooperation between Kahn and Robinson in drafting Robinson’s book, see Rosselli (2005).
- 12.
“The condition of tangency between the demand curve and the average-cost curve of a profit-maximising firm that just breaks even, Schumpeter in his 1930s Harvard lectures used to refer to as ‘Kahn’s Theorem’” (Samuelson 1994, p. 54n.).
- 13.
RFK to JVR, 3.3.1933: “Taussig’s refusal of my article on ‘Imperfect Competition and the Marginal Principle’ was conducted with great candour, which I did all I could to encourage”. (RFK papers, 13/90/43).
- 14.
J.M. Keynes (henceforth JMK) to RFK of 1.1.1935, in RFK papers, 13/57/122.
- 15.
RFK to M. Kalecki, 10.7.1939 (RFK papers, 5/1/149–58) and 11.7.1939 (RFK papers, 5/1/159–162).
- 16.
M. Kalecki to RFK, 9.6.1939 in RFK papers, 5/1/146. See also Osiatynski (1991, p. 524).
- 17.
R.F. Kahn to R. Marris, 2.5.1987 (in Marris 1991, p. 184).
- 18.
JMK to Lydia, 28.4.1928, in JMK papers, PP/45/190.
- 19.
JMK to RFK, 16.3.1930, in RFK papers, 13/57/3.
- 20.
Among Kahn’s papers is an extract from the article, with a dedication to an unidentified Elgar: “With the author’s heartful thanks for the cooperation and stimulus received in the Tyrol, August 1930 and Surrey, March 1931” (RFK papers, 13/127).
- 21.
Letter from RFK to R. Marris, 2.5.1987, in R. Marris 1991, p. 184: “Maynard derived from me the idea of thinking in terms of the supply curves of capital goods and consumption goods”. See also Kahn’s letter to D. Patinkin, 11.10.1978: “I claim I brought the theory of value into the General Theory in the form of a concept of the supply curve as a whole and that this was a major contribution” (Patinkin 1993, p. 659).
- 22.
For the maintenance of this hypothesis, Keynes is known to have attributed the responsibility to Kahn (Keynes 1973a, pp. 399–400).
- 23.
On this correspondence see Marcuzzo 2005.
- 24.
“‘Formalists’ are mathematicians who are exceptionally capable of formally working out a given problem and finding the algorithm. Finally, ‘intuitionists’ are those who give special importance to geometrical intuition … in all branches of mathematics” (Weintraub 1998, pp. 1841–42).
- 25.
JMK to RFK, 13.8.1934, in RFK papers, 13/57/58.
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Marcuzzo, M.C., Paesani, P. (2022). Introduction. In: Marcuzzo, M.C., Paesani, P. (eds) Richard F. Kahn. Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thought. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98588-2_1
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