R.F. Harrod, 1900–78 and E.D. Domar, 1914–99: Cycles and Growth

Abstract

Roy Harrod was born in February 1900, completing his education by taking a first class honours degree in Classical Studies and Philosophy at Oxford (1919–22). This, together with a second, first class honours result in History (1923) gained him a tutorial fellowship at his College, Christ Church, to teach the then ‘novel’ subject of Economics at Oxford within its newly created honours school of Politics, Philosophy and Economics. Harrod was given two terms to prepare himself for the task (he had never studied Economics), doing so at Cambridge (partly with Keynes with whom he formed a strong friendship and of whom he became the first biographer) and later, at Oxford, with Edgeworth on micro-economics. His publications on economics began with articles on the topic of imperfect competition in the early 1930s (then all the rage, see Chapter 29 above), followed by a Cambridge Economic Handbook (1934) on International Economics (which, among other things, adapted Kahn’s concept of the multiplier to international trade) and then a book on The Trade Cycle (1936). Harrod had been heavily involved in the lead-up to the General Theory, corresponding with Keynes on early drafts and he later helped in popularising its findings. Just before the Second World War, Harrod contributed an essay on dynamic theory to the Economic Journal (1939). This was developed into a booklet, Towards a Dynamic Economics (1948) and subsequently, A Second Essay in Dynamic Theory (1960). During the 1960s he wrote on economic policy. He died in 1978.