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Robert Giffen


Robert Giffen was an economist and statistician. He was born in Scotland in 1837 in the town of Strathaven and educated at a small village school. At a young age, he showed at interest in journalism and law. His experiences at the Stirling Journal led him to move to London and take a job at the Globe in 1862. Four years later he went on to take a job at the The Economist as an assistant. His writing was mainly focused on economic and financial subjects including economic growth, national product and more. [1]

This experience as a journalist paved the path for his work involving the interpretation of economic statistics. His contributions led to his membership in the Royal Statistical Society serving as an editor and president and receiving awards. [2]

Robert Giffen continued in later years to take a leading part in all public controversies connected with finance and taxation. Perhaps his greatest contribution is the concept of giffen goods. Giffen goods are named after him and Alfred Marshall credited him with the idea in his book the Principles of Economics. Giffen first proposed the renown paradox from his observations of the purchasing habits of the Victorian Era poor. [2]

Prior to writing about this, I knew about Giffen Goods since it is such a prevalent topic in many economics classes. However, I did not know what experiences to the proposal of the paradox. 

[1] http://policonomics.com/robert-giffen/
[2] http://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/giffen-robert

Comments

  1. Professor ArvanSeptember 9, 2017 at 6:32 AM

    The particular experience that motivated the idea of a Giffen good was the Irish Potato Famine, which caused many deaths and a large out-migrations, many to America. Potatoes were a staple of the diet in Ireland and when the crop failed, as the saying goes, people were so poor that all they could demand was potatoes.

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