Dennis Holme Robertson (1890–1963)

Abstract

Dennis Robertson played an important role in the history of Cambridge economics, through his contributions to monetary and business cycle theory, and to utility and welfare. As a macroeconomist, Robertson investigated the dynamic relationship between monetary flows and economic fluctuations. His main contributions to monetary macroeconomics were written between 1915 and 1934. During that period (especially in the 1920s) he and Maynard Keynes interacted extensively. However, after the publication of Keynes's General Theory in 1936, Robertson became critical of what he perceived as shortcomings of Keynesian liquidity preference and equilibrium unemployment theories. From a microeconomic perspective, Robertson made a sustained effort to keep alive the Cambridge Marshallian cardinalist approach to utility, especially after the ordinalist revolution in welfare economics in the 1940s. Robertson claimed that economic theory and policy necessarily involve interpersonal comparisons of utility and welfare.