Lerner, Abba Ptachya (1905–1982)

Abstract

Lerner was one of the last of the great non-mathematical economists and certainly one of the most original, versatile and prolific members of the profession. Born in Rumania, raised from early childhood in the Jewish immigrant quarter of London’s East End, he went to rabbinical school, started work at 16, working as tailor, capmaker, Hebrew School teacher, typesetter, and then founded his own printing shop. When that went bankrupt at the onset of the Great Depression, he enrolled as an evening student at the London School of Economics to find out the reason for his shop’s failure. There, his outstanding logical faculties soon became evident and won him all the available prizes and fellowships, one of which took him to Cambridge to study with Keynes. He published many major articles already as an undergraduate, was appointed temporary assistant lecturer at the London School of Economics in 1935, assistant lecturer in 1936, and in 1937 a Rockefeller fellowship took him to the United States, where he remained, although his restlessness kept him from settling at any one university for more than a few years.

This chapter was originally published in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd edition, 2008. Edited by Steven N. Durlauf and Lawrence E. Blume