Abstract
Allyn Young’s career presents a puzzle. He is best known to modem readers, if at all, as the author of one muchreprinted article on ‘Increasing Returns and Economic Progress’ (1928). With such a narrow base his present fame can of course hardly compare with that of some other leading American economists of his day, such as Irving Fisher, Frank Knight, Wesley Mitchell and Thorstein Veblen. Yet during his life he was very highly regarded indeed, and not just by a US economics profession more insular then than now. To Schumpeter, ‘his published work … [does] … not convey any idea of the width and depth of his thought and still less of what he meant to American economics’ (1954, p. 875, n23). To Keynes, in a letter of consolation to Young’s widow, ‘His was the outstanding personality in the economic world and the most lovable’ (Blitch, 1983, p. 22). To Ohlin, he was ‘a man, who knew and thoroughly understood his subject — economics — better than anyone else I have ever met’ (Blitch, 1983, p. 14). The London School of Economics, in the mid-1920s flush with Rockefeller money and looking to make an ‘appointment to the new chair [that] should be so eminent as to be the basis of a major expansion’, chose Young ‘after a prolonged search of the English-speaking world’ (Robbins, 1971, p. 119).
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Selected works
1900–1901. The comparative accuracy of different forms of quinquennial age groups. Publications of the American Statistical Association 7, 27–39.
1908. (With T.S. Adams and M.O. Lorenz.) Revised edn of R.T. Ely, Outlines of Economics. New York: Macmillan. Subsequent revisions in 1916, 1923 and 1930.
1913. Pigou’s Wealth and Welfare. Quarterly Journal of Economics 27, 672–86.
1919–20. The economics of the treaty. New Republic 21, 388–9.
1922–3. The United States and reparations. Foreign Affairs 1, 35–47.
1925. Papers relating to political economy. American Economic Review 15, 721–4.
1927. Economic Problems New and Old. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. (This contains 14 papers, dated 1911 through 1927, that are not included in the present list.)
1928. Increasing returns and economic progress. Economic Journal 38, 527–42.
1929. Eleven articles, published posthumously: Capital; Economics; Labour; Land; Price; Rent; Supply and Demand; Utility; Wages; Wealth; Value. In The . Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th edn. London: Encyclopaedia Britannica Company.
Bibliography
Blitch, C.P. 1983. Allyn A. Young a curious case of professional neglect. History of Political Economy 15, 1–24.
Chamberlin, E.H. 1933. The Theory of Monopolistic Competition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Dorfman, J. 1934. Thorstein Veblen and his America. New York: Viking Press. Reprinted with new appendices, New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1961.
Dorfman, J. 1959. The Economic Mind in American Civilization. Vol. 4. New York: Viking Press.
Harrod, R.F. 1951. The Life of John Maynard Keynes. London: Macmillan.
Keynes, J.M. 1919. The Economic Consequences of the Peace. London: Macmillan.
Keynes, J.M. 1922. A Revision of the Treaty. London: Macmillan.
Keynes, J.M. 1977. Activities 1920–1922: treaty revision and reconstruction. In The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, vol. 17, ed. E. Johnson. London: Macmillan for the Royal Economic Society.
Knight, F.H. 1921. Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Knight, F.H. 1924. Some fallacies in the interpretation of social cost. Quarterly Journal of Economics 38, 582–606.
Pigou, A.C. 1912. Wealth and Welfare. London: Macmillan.
Robbins, L. 1971. Autobiography of an Economist. London: Macmillan.
Samuelson, P.A. 1947. ‘The General Theory’. In The New Economics: Keynes’ Influence on Theory and Policy, ed. S. Harris. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Schumpeter, J.A. 1954. History of Economic Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press.
Tugwell, R.G., ed. 1924. The Trend of Economics. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2008 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
About this entry
Cite this entry
Newman, P. (2008). Young, Allyn Abbott (1876–1929). In: Durlauf, S.N., Blume, L.E. (eds) The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-58802-2_1843
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-58802-2_1843
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-78676-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-58802-2