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Charles Hilliard Feinstein (1932–2004)

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Abstract

Charles Feinstein extended Richard Stone’s System of National Accounts of the UK back to the middle of the nineteenth century, with some elements extended into the eighteenth century. Together with Stone and Simon Kuznets, he advocated a bookkeeping model of general equilibrium that did not rely on assumptions of market clearing or optimality. He was a leader of economic history in Britain, and held important academic posts at Cambridge, York, and Oxford. He was born in South Africa, left it as a proscribed radical, and returned to work there after the end of apartheid.

Derived from Offer (2008) with the permission of the British Academy

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Notes

  1. 1.

    From the transcript of the address at Charles’s funeral, composed jointly by members of his family, and read by Alan Stein.

  2. 2.

    References may be found in the bibliographies of Charles’s dissertation, ‘Home and Foreign Investment: Some Aspects of Capital Formation, Finance and Income in the United Kingdom, 1870–1913’ (Cambridge University PhD thesis, submitted March 1959) and of his first two books, Feinstein (1965, 1972).

  3. 3.

    Anticipated in November 1939 by two articles in The Times.

  4. 4.

    This is not a judgement on the accuracy, completeness, and methodology of any of the other projects.

  5. 5.

    This does not confer infallibility but indicates standing in the discipline.

  6. 6.

    A tinge of regret by Matthews in von Tunzelmann and Thomas (2007: 162).

  7. 7.

    Membership extended well beyond Clare College.

  8. 8.

    McCloskey eventually explored the effects of emotion much further than Charles ever did.

References

Main Works by Charles Feinstein

  • Feinstein, C.H. (1965). Domestic Capital Formation in the United Kingdom, 1920–1938. London: Cambridge University Press.

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  • Feinstein, C.H. (1972). National Income, Expenditure and Output of the United Kingdom, 1855–1965. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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  • Feinstein, C.H. (1988). ‘The Rise and Fall of the Williamson Curve’. The Journal of Economic History, 48(3): 699–729.

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  • Feinstein, C.H. (1992). ‘Why Socialism Fails’. Unpublished. Available from the author.

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  • Feinstein, C.H. (1997). ‘Technical Progress and Technology Transfer in a Centrally-Planned Economy: The Experience of the USSR, 1917–1987’. Chapter 3 in C.H. Feinstein and C. Howe (eds) Chinese Technology Transfer in the 1990s: Current Experience, Historical Problems and International Perspectives. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar: 62–81.

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  • Feinstein, C.H. (1998). ‘Pessimism Perpetuated: Real Wages and the Standard of Living in Britain during and after the Industrial Revolution’. The Journal of Economic History, 58(3): 625–658.

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  • Feinstein, C.H. (2005). An Economic History of South Africa: Conquest, Discrimination and Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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  • Feinstein, C.H. and S. Pollard (1988). Studies in Capital Formation in the United Kingdom, 1750–1920. Author of Part II, ‘National Statistics, 1760–1920’. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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  • Feinstein, C.H., P. Temin and G. Toniolo (1997). The European Economy between the Wars. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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  • Feinstein, C.H. and M. Thomas (2002). Making History Count. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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  • Feinstein, C.H. and M. Thomas (forthcoming). The Mid-Victorian Economy: Making, Earning and Spending in the United Kingdom in 1851. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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  • Matthews, R.C.O., C.H. Feinstein and J.C. Odling-Smee (1982). British Economic Growth, 1856–1973. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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Other Works Referred To

  • Bos, F. (1992). ‘The History of National Accounting’. Occasional Paper 48. Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics, National Accounts Research Division.

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  • Carson, C.S. (1975). ‘The History of the United States National Income and Product Accounts: The Development of an Analytical Tool’. Review of Income and Wealth, 21(2): 153–181.

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  • David, P. (2005). ‘Intellectual Achievement’. In All Souls College, ‘Charles Hilliard Feinstein. Memorial Meeting, 4 June 2005’. Unpublished pamphlet, Oxford.

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  • David, P.A and M. Thomas (eds) (2003). The Economic Future in Historical Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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  • Fogel, R.W. (2000). ‘Simon S. Kuznets: April 30, 1901-July 9, 1985’. NBER Working Paper 7787. Cambridge, Mass.: NBER

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  • Foley, D.K. (1998). ‘Interview with Wassily Leontief’. Macroeconomic Dynamics, 2(1): 116–140.

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  • Hepple, B. (2005). ‘South Africa and Clare College’. In All Souls College, ‘Charles Hilliard Feinstein. Memorial Meeting, 4 June 2005’. Unpublished pamphlet, Oxford.

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  • Kendrick, J.W. and M.R. Pech (1961). Productivity Trends in the United States. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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  • Kuznets, S. (1933). ‘National Income’. In E.R.A. Seligman and A. Johnson (eds) Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences. Volume 11. New York: Macmillan: 205–224.

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  • Leontief, W. (1937). ‘Implicit Theorizing: A Methodological Criticism of the Neo-Cambridge School’. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 51(2): 337–351.

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  • Leontief, W. (1971). ‘Theoretical Assumptions and Nonobserved Facts’. American Economic Review, 61(1): 1–7.

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  • Lundberg, E. (1971). ‘Simon Kuznets’ Contribution to Economics’. Swedish Journal of Economics, 73(4): 444–459.

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  • Matthews, R.C.O. and J.R. Sargent (eds) (1983). Contemporary Problems of Economic Policy: Essays from the CLARE Group. London: Routledge.

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  • Offer, A. (2008). ‘Charles Hilliard Feinstein’. Proceedings of the British Academy, 153. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows, 7: 189–212.

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  • St. John, I. (n.d.). ‘A Student’s Recollections of Charles Feinstein’. Unpublished.

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  • Stone, R. and D.A. Rowe (1954). The Measurement of Consumers’ Expenditure and Behaviour in the United Kingdom, 1920–1938. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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  • Studenski, P. (1967). The Income of Nations, with Corrections and Emendations. New York: New York University Press.

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  • Thomas, M. (2002). ‘Interview with Charles Feinstein, All Souls College, Oxford, 2 August 2002’. This is a more complete typescript version of M. Thomas, ‘An Interview with Charles Feinstein’, The Newsletter of the Cliometric Society, 2003, 18(3): 4–15. It also appears as ‘Charles H. Feinstein’ in J.S. Lyons, L.P. Cain and S.H. Williamson (eds) (2007) Reflections on the Cliometrics Revolution: Conversations with Economic Historians. Abingdon: Routledge: 286–300.

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  • von Tunzelmann, N. and M. Thomas (2007). Interview of ‘R.C.O. Matthews’. In J.S. Lyons, L.P. Cain and S.H. Williamson (eds) Reflections on the Cliometrics Revolution: Conversations with Economic Historians. Abingdon: Routledge: 155–169.

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  • Vanoli, A. (2005). A History of National Accounting. Amsterdam: IOS Press.

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Offer, A. (2017). Charles Hilliard Feinstein (1932–2004). In: Cord, R. (eds) The Palgrave Companion to Cambridge Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-41233-1_46

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