Joseph Lowe (economist)

Last updated

Joseph Lowe (died 1831) [1] was a Scottish journalist and political economist. He is now known for his pioneer treatment of indexation, and Maurice Kendall called him the generally recognised "father of index numbers". [2] [3]

Contents

In the debate on the Corn Laws in 1839, Sir Robert Peel cited the views of Lowe and Thomas Tooke, to argue against imposing a low fixed rate of import duty on corn. [4]

Life

From Brechin, Lowe attended the University of St Andrews and University of Edinburgh. He then went into business, spending time in the Netherlands from 1792, and then London. [5] [6]

Lowe spent a period at Caen in France, from June 1814. [5] [7] From September 1815 he was tutor there to Edward Deas Thomson and his elder brother; Thomson later kept in touch and discussed technology with Lowe. [8] He also employed Nathaniel Morren and others as writers. [9] James Mill was a friend of Lowe from school days, and his son John Stuart Mill visited Lowe in France for some weeks in 1821. [1] [10]

Lowe was appointed lecturer in Commerce at King's College, London, around 1830, at the end of his life. [11] According to Mill's biographer Alexander Bain, Lowe was partly dependent on Mill, and was unable to retain his position. [12]

Books

The Present State of England in Regard to Agriculture, Trade and Finance (1822) was Lowe's major work, now noted mostly for its Chapter IX, Fluctuation in the Value of Money or in the Price of Commodities, which influenced George Poulett Scrope. [14] Otto Neurath later praised this book as an attempt at a comprehensive sketch of a war economy. [15] Lowe's general conclusions were rather buoyant, allowing the British economy good prospects and the moderation of the culture being promising for the future. He supported free trade and opposed the views of Robert Malthus. [16]

Lowe advocated indexation as applied to bonds, but also to wage contracts and land rents. [17] His advocacy of a "tabular standard" (a precursor of the indexed unit of account) has been recognised as a technical advance in monetary analysis; [18] Lowe used the terms "standard of reference" or "table of reference"; [19] the idea itself, and the term "tabular standard" are attributed to George Shuckburgh-Evelyn. [20]

The first to use weighted index numbers, Lowe in effect anticipated the Laspeyres index. The book reviewed previous work by William Fleetwood, George Shuckburgh and Arthur Young. A German translation appeared in 1823. [21] [22] Lowe innovated in his use of constant price estimates, and the consideration of different demographic groups and their consumption, which anticipated the modern concept of consumer price index. [23] [24] Samuel Bailey argued against the concept of tabular standards, pointing to the difficulties arising from the need for like-to-like comparisons. [25]

William Stanley Jevons later found Lowe's pioneer work on inflation-indexed bonds "ingenious". [26] Lowe was a proponent of such bonds, to support and buffer the developing capital market. [27] The book also opposed expansion of the workhouse system, on grounds of expense. [28]

Statistician

As a statistician, Lowe was one of an early group who collected economic data, and applied it in pamphlets and polemics. In fact the term current then was "political arithmetician". The larger significance of the statistical work of Lowe and Thomas Tooke is that they collected figures from the period of the Continental System, of the latter part of the Napoleonic Wars. These data were then deployed in the theoretical arguments of the 1820s, dominated by David Ricardo and his doctrine on convertibility. [29]

There were no agreed principles on collection and use of data. Others bringing forward sets of figures were Patrick Colquhoun, Frederick Morton Eden, and George Richardson Porter. Their work carried less intellectual prestige than that of the political economists. [30] Lowe was mainly concerned with fiscal policy. [31] He accused those who had drawn up the Bullion Report into monetary policy after the end of the Napoleonic Wars of failing to take into account recent economic growth. [32] He argued the point quantitatively for the previous decade in The Present State of England (1822). [33]

Journalism

Lowe turned from his career as merchant to writing, after a reply he made to a pamphlet of Henry Brougham in 1806 was a success. He wrote for Lloyd's Evening Post and the Edinburgh Review . He mainly contributed to the Monthly Review , for which he wrote in the period 1805 to 1815. In reviewing a work of Davis Giddy on bullionism, he produced his own analysis, in the context of the Napoleonic Wars, of the connection of foreign exchange and shortages of bullion. [6] [34] He also contributed to The Athenaeum edited by John Aikin. [5]

Encyclopedias

Lowe wrote in the 1824 Britannica supplement on copyright, using the article to advocate for an extension of the current term of authors' copyright. [35] This work was reprinted in Remarks on Literary Property (1838) by Philip Houlbrooke Nicklin in Philadelphia. [36] In the Encyclopædia Britannica Seventh Edition Lowe wrote on "Austria" and "Book-Keeping". [37] [38] He wrote also for the Edinburgh Encyclopædia , on "Bullion", "Commerce", "Currency" and other topics. [39]

Notes

  1. 1 2 Bentham, Jeremy (1994). The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham: July 1820 to December 1821. Oxford University Press. p. 327 note. ISBN   978-0-19-822617-8 . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  2. ↑ William N. Goetzmann; K. Geert Rouwenhorst (2005). The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations that Created Modern Capital Markets. Oxford University Press. p. 240. ISBN   978-0-19-517571-4 . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  3. ↑ M. G. Kendall, Studies in the History of Probability and Statistics, XXI. The Early History of Index Numbers, Revue de l'Institut International de Statistique / Review of the International Statistical Institute Vol. 37, No. 1 (1969), pp. 1–12, at p. 5. Published by: International Statistical Institute (ISI). Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1402090
  4. ↑ Anna Gambles (1999). Protection and Politics: Conservative Economic Discourse, 1815 – 1852. Boydell & Brewer Ltd. p. 66 note 54. ISBN   978-0-86193-244-3 . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Joseph Lowe (1823). England nach seinem gegenwärtigen zustande des ackerbaues, des handels und der finanzen ... (in German). F.A. Brockhaus. pp. 20–1. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  6. 1 2 Alexander Dick (12 April 2013). Romanticism and the Gold Standard: Money, Literature, and Economic Debate in Britain 1790–1830. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 32–3. ISBN   978-1-137-29293-3 . Retrieved 16 May 2013.
  7. ↑ Barton Swaim (2009). Scottish Men of Letters and the New Public Sphere, 1802 – 1834. Associated University Presse. p. 13. ISBN   978-0-8387-5716-1 . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  8. ↑ Stephen Glynn Foster (1978). Colonial Improver: Edward Deas Thompson (1800–1879). Melbourne University Press. p. 5 and 9. ISBN   978-0522841367.
  9. ↑ Nathaniel Morren (1848). Sermons, to which is prefixed a memoir of the author. William Blackwood and Sons. p. x. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  10. ↑ John Stuart Mill (1981). Autobiography and literary essays. Taylor & Francis. p. 63. ISBN   978-0-8020-2368-1 . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  11. ↑ The London Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, Etc. H. Colburn. 1831. p. 314. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  12. ↑ Alexander Bain (philosopher) (8 December 2011). James Mill: A Biography. Cambridge University Press. p. 80. ISBN   978-1-108-04080-8 . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  13. ↑ Joseph Lowe (1807). An inquiry into the state of the British West Indies. C. and R. Baldwin. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  14. ↑ Correa Moylan Walsh, The Fundamental Problem in Monetary Science (1903), pp. 171–2; archive.org.
  15. ↑ Otto Neurath (1973). Empiricism and Sociology. Springer. pp. 126–7. ISBN   978-90-277-0259-3 . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  16. ↑ Stephen Glynn Foster (1978). Colonial Improver: Edward Deas Thompson (1800–1879). Melbourne University Press. p. 6. ISBN   978-0522841367.
  17. ↑ Mark Deacon; Andrew Derry; Dariush Mirfendereski (21 April 2004). Inflation-indexed Securities: Bonds, Swaps and Other Derivatives. John Wiley & Sons. p. 2 note 4. ISBN   978-0-470-86898-0 . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  18. ↑ Joseph A. Schumpeter (24 March 1994). History of Economic Analysis. Taylor & Francis. p. 682. ISBN   978-0-203-98391-1 . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  19. ↑ Redvers Opie, A Neglected English Economist: George Poulett Scrope, The Quarterly Journal of Economics Vol. 44, No. 1 (Nov. 1929), pp. 101–137, at p. 121 note 3. Published by: Oxford University Press. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1885442
  20. ↑ R. H. Inglis Palgrave (5 March 2015). Dictionary of Political Economy. Cambridge University Press. p. 510. ISBN   978-1-108-08080-4.
  21. ↑ Richard Stone (1997). Some British Empiricists in the Social Sciences, 1650–1900. Cambridge University Press. pp. 136–8. ISBN   978-0-521-57145-6 . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  22. ↑ England nach seinem gegenwärtigen Zustande des Ackerbaues, des Handels und der Finanzen betrachtet, translated by L. H. von Jakob, Leipzig 1823.
  23. ↑ Jonathan Nitzan; Shimshon Bichler (26 May 2009). Capital as Power: A Study of Order and Creorder. Routledge. p. 41 note 12. ISBN   978-0-203-87632-9 . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  24. ↑ W. Erwin Diewert; John Greenlees; Charles R. Hulten (15 February 2010). Price Index Concepts and Measurement. University of Chicago Press. p. 20 note 4. ISBN   978-0-226-14857-1 . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  25. ↑ Sir Robert Harry Inglis Palgrave (1987). The New Palgrave: a dictionary of economics. Vol. 1. Stockton Press. p. 174. ISBN   978-0-935859-10-2.
  26. ↑ John C. Wood (1988). William Stanley Jevons: critical assessments. Routledge. p. 159. ISBN   978-0-415-00387-2 . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  27. ↑ Robert T. Price (1 January 1997). The Rationale and Design of Inflation-Indexed Bonds (EPub). International Monetary Fund. p. 1990. ISBN   978-1-4527-4425-4 . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  28. ↑ Anthony Brundage and David Eastwood, The Making of the New Poor Law Redivivus, Past & Present No. 127 (May 1990), pp. 183–194, at p. 192 note 27. Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/650946
  29. ↑ Ronald Findlay, ed. (c. 2006). Eli Heckscher, International Trade, and Economic History. MIT Press. pp. 395–6. ISBN   978-0262062510.
  30. ↑ Ashu Pasricha (1 January 2008). Encyclopaedia Eminent Thinkers (vol. 11 : The Political Thought of Dadabhai Naoroji). Concept Publishing Company. p. 47. ISBN   978-81-8069-491-2 . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  31. ↑ André Vanoli (2005). A History of National Accounting. IOS Press. p. 4. ISBN   978-1-58603-469-6 . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  32. ↑ James Frederick Rees, A Short Fiscal and Financial History of England 1815–1918 (1921), p. 51; archive.org.
  33. ↑ George Richardson Porter (1970). The Progress of the Nation. Taylor & Francis. pp. 697–8. GGKEY:UW2YNK654YA. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  34. ↑ Lionel Madden (11 January 2013). Robert Southey: The Critical Heritage. Routledge. p. 244. ISBN   978-1-134-78214-7 . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  35. ↑ John J. Lowndes; Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd (2008). An Historical Sketch of the Law of Copyright: With Remarks on Sergeant Talfourd's Bill, and an Appendix of the Copyright Laws of Foreign Countries. The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. p. vi. ISBN   978-1-58477-912-4 . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  36. ↑ Philip Houlbrooke Nicklin; Joseph Lowe (1838). Remarks on literary property. P. H. Nicklin & T. Johnson. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  37. ↑ The Edinburgh Literary Journal; Or, Weekly Register of Criticism and Belles Lettres. Constable. 1831. p.  20 . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  38. ↑ Robert Russell (1857). North America, its agriculture and climate: containing observations on the agriculture and climate of Canada, the United States, and the island of Cuba. A. and C. Black. p.  398 . Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  39. ↑ James MacQueen (1821). A Geographical and Commercial View of Northern Central Africa: Containing a Particular Account of the Course and Termination of the Great River Niger in the Atlantic Ocean. W. Blackwood. p. 301. Retrieved 17 May 2013.

Related Research Articles

Bank of England Central bank of the United Kingdom

The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and still one of the bankers for the Government of the United Kingdom, it is the world's eighth-oldest bank. It was privately owned by stockholders from its foundation in 1694 until it was nationalised in 1946 by the Attlee ministry.

Central bank Government body that manages currency and monetary policy

A central bank, reserve bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the currency and monetary policy of a state or formal monetary union, and oversees their commercial banking system. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central bank possesses a monopoly on increasing the monetary base. Most central banks also have supervisory and regulatory powers to ensure the stability of member institutions, to prevent bank runs, and to discourage reckless or fraudulent behavior by member banks.

David Ricardo British economist, broker and politician (1772-1823)

David Ricardo was a British political economist, one of the most influential of the classical economists along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith and James Mill. He was also a politician, and a member of the Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland.

Economics Social science

Economics is "the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services."

Macroeconomics Study of an economy as a whole

Macroeconomics is a branch of economics dealing with performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole. For example, using interest rates, taxes, and government spending to regulate an economy’s growth and stability. This includes regional, national, and global economies. According to a 2018 assessment by economists Emi Nakamura and Jón Steinsson, economic "evidence regarding the consequences of different macroeconomic policies is still highly imperfect and open to serious criticism."

Gold standard Monetary system based on the value of gold

A gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the early 1920s, and from the late 1920s to 1932 as well as from 1944 until 1971 when the United States unilaterally terminated convertibility of the US dollar to gold foreign central banks, effectively ending the Bretton Woods system. Many states still hold substantial gold reserves.

Inflation Rise in price level in an economy over time

In economics, inflation refers to a general progressive increase in prices of goods and services in an economy. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation corresponds to a reduction in the purchasing power of money. The opposite of inflation is deflation, a sustained decrease in the general price level of goods and services. The common measure of inflation is the inflation rate, the annualised percentage change in a general price index.

Pound sterling Official currency of the United Kingdom and other territories

The pound sterling, known in some contexts as the British pound, the pound, or sterling, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Gibraltar, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, the British Antarctic Territory, and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence. The "pound sterling" is the oldest currency in continuous use. Some nations that do not use sterling also have currencies called the pound.

Monetary economics is the branch of economics that studies the different competing theories of money: it provides a framework for analyzing money and considers its functions, and it considers how money can gain acceptance purely because of its convenience as a public good. The discipline has historically prefigured, and remains integrally linked to, macroeconomics. This branch also examines the effects of monetary systems, including regulation of money and associated financial institutions and international aspects.

In monetary economics, the quantity theory of money is one of the directions of Western economic thought that emerged in the 16th-17th centuries. The QTM states that the general price level of goods and services is directly proportional to the amount of money in circulation, or money supply. For example, if the amount of money in an economy doubles, QTM predicts that price levels will also double. The theory was originally formulated by Polish mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus in 1517, and was influentially restated by philosophers John Locke, David Hume, Jean Bodin. The theory experienced a large surge in popularity with economists Anna Schwartz and Milton Friedman's book A Monetary History of the United States, published in 1963.

Bank of Canada Central bank of Canada

The Bank of Canada is a Crown corporation and Canada's central bank. Chartered in 1934 under the Bank of Canada Act, it is responsible for formulating Canada's monetary policy, and for the promotion of a safe and sound financial system within Canada. The Bank of Canada is the sole issuing authority of Canadian banknotes, provides banking services and money management for the government, and loans money to Canadian financial institutions. The contract to produce the banknotes has been held by the Canadian Bank Note Company since 1935.

Modern Monetary Theory Macroeconomic theory

Modern Monetary Theory or Modern Money Theory (MMT) is a heterodox macroeconomic theory that describes currency as a public monopoly and unemployment as evidence that a currency monopolist is overly restricting the supply of the financial assets needed to pay taxes and satisfy savings desires. MMT is opposed to the mainstream understanding of macroeconomic theory, and has been criticized by many mainstream economists.

Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic Occurrence of hyperinflation in early 20th century Germany

Hyperinflation affected the German Papiermark, the currency of the Weimar Republic, between 1921 and 1923, primarily in 1923. It caused considerable internal political instability in the country, the occupation of the Ruhr by France and Belgium as well as misery for the general populace.

United States dollar Official currency of the United States

The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and its territories. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it into 100 cents, and authorized the minting of coins denominated in dollars and cents. U.S. banknotes are issued in the form of Federal Reserve Notes, popularly called greenbacks due to their predominantly green color.

Fiat money Currency not backed by any commodity

Fiat money is a type of money that is not backed by any commodity such as gold or silver, and typically declared by a decree from the government to be legal tender. Throughout history, fiat money was sometimes issued by local banks and other institutions. In modern times, fiat money is generally established by government regulation.

Marc Lavoie

Marc Lavoie is a Canadian professor in economics at the University of Ottawa and a former Olympic fencing athlete.

William Blake was an English classical economist who contributed to the early theory of purchasing power parity.

Piccadilly Mill, also known as Bank Top Mill or Drinkwater's Mill, owned by Peter Drinkwater, was the first cotton mill in Manchester, England, to be directly powered by a steam engine, and the 10th such mill in the world. Construction of the four-storey mill on Auburn Street started in 1789 and its 8 hp Boulton and Watt engine was installed and working by 1 May 1790. Initially the engine drove only the preparatory equipment and spinning was done manually. The mill-wright was Thomas Lowe, who had worked for William Fairbairn and helped with the planning two of Arkwright's earliest factories.

Philip Houlbrooke Nicklin was an American bookseller, publisher and writer. In 1829, Nicklin was elected to the American Philosophical Society. In 1834, a trustee himself, he reported to the trustees of the University of Pennsylvania "concerning the universities of Oxford and Cambridge in England".

William Hamilton Reid

William Hamilton Reid was a British poet and hack writer. A supporter of radical politics turned loyalist, he is known for his 1800 pamphlet exposé The Rise and Dissolution of the Infidel Societies in this Metropolis. His later views turned again towards radicalism.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.