Florence, Philip Sargant (1890–1982)

Abstract

An institutional economist whose work fell broadly into the fields of regional development and industrial organization, Philip Sargant Florence was born in New Jersey (USA) on 25 June 1890 but lived and worked for the greater part of his life in England. He was educated at Rugby, Caius College, Cambridge (taking a First in the Economics Tripos in 1914), and Columbia University (Ph.D.). From 1921 until 1929 he was a lecturer at Cambridge, and was then elected (succeeding J.F. Rees) into the Chair of Commerce in the University of Birmingham, which he occupied until his retirement in 1955. As an American citizen he travelled back to the US for appointments as visiting professor after his retirement, and this he did on at least two occasions – once visiting Johns Hopkins and on another occasion the University of Rhode Island. For the last ten years of his life he was a vice-president of the Royal Economic Society. He died on 29 January 1982 at the age of 91.

This chapter was originally published in The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, 1st edition, 1987. Edited by John Eatwell, Murray Milgate and Peter Newman