Richard Stone | |
|---|---|
 Stone in 1984 | |
| Born | (1913-08-30)30 August 1913 London, England |
| Died | 6 December 1991(1991-12-06) (aged 78) Cambridge, England |
| Children | 1 |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge King's College, Cambridge |
| Influences | James Meade Colin Clark |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Economics |
| Institutions | Cambridge University |
| Doctoral students | James Mirrlees Angus Deaton |
| Notable ideas | National accounts,input-output |
| Awards | Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (1984) |
| Website | |
Sir John Richard Nicholas StoneCBE FBA (30 August 1913 – 6 December 1991) was an eminentBritisheconomist. He was educated atGonville and Caius College andKing's College at theUniversity of Cambridge. In 1984, he was awarded theNobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for developing anaccounting model that could be used to track economic activities on a national and, later, an international scale.
Richard Stone was born in London on 30 August 1913. He received an English upper middle class education when he was a child as he attended Cliveden Place andWestminster School.[1] However, he had not been taught mathematics and science until secondary school. When he was 17 years old, he followed his father toIndia as his father was appointed as a judge inMadras. From India, he visited many Asian countries: Malaya, Singapore, and Indonesia. After travelling for one year, he went back to London and then matriculated atGonville and Caius College, Cambridge, in 1931, where he studied law for two years.
The young Stone then changed to studyingeconomics. He was interested in economics as he thought that "if there were more economists, the world would be a better place". During theGreat Slump of the 1930s, unemployment was very high and this motivated him to know what caused it and how to overcome it. He faced a challenge from his parents as they were disappointed with his choice. However, Stone was very enthusiastic to be an economist and then enjoyed his time studying economics. At his new major, he got supervision fromRichard Kahn andGerald Shove. However, Stone's quantitative mind had been greatly influenced byColin Clark, Stone's teacher instatistics at Cambridge. Clark then introduced Stone to his project in measuring thenational income. This project then brought the greatest name for Stone as he receivedNobel Prize because of this topic. After their meeting at Cambridge, Stone and Clark then became best friends.
After graduating from Cambridge in 1935 and untilWorld War II he worked atLloyd's of London.[2] During the war, Stone worked withJames Meade as a statistician and economist for the British Government. At the government's request, they analyzed the UK's economy related to the current total resources of the nation for the war time. It was at this time that they developed the early versions of the system of national accounts. Their work resulted in the U.K.'s first national accounts in 1941.
The collaboration between Stone and Meade was over after 1941 as their office was split into two different ones. They then worked separately, Meade being responsible for the Economic Section and Stone, for the national income. In his new office, theCentral Statistical Office, Stone becameJohn Maynard Keynes' assistant. Stone left working for the government when the war ended in 1945.
After the war, Stone took up an academic career when he worked at Cambridge as the director of the new Department of Applied Economics (1945–1955). As the director, Stone made the Department focus on research programmes about economic theory and statistical methodology. This strategy attracted many top economists in that era to join the Department. Some remarkable works at the Department were, for example, Durbin and Watson on testing serial correlation in econometrics, andAlan Prest andDerek Rowe on demand analysis. This condition made DAE become one of the leading quantitative economic research centres in the world in his era.[3] Stone himself had many projects in DAE:national accounting where he had employedAgatha Chapman as a research associate,[4] the analysis of consumer demand, and the system of socio-demographic account.
In 1955, Stone gave up his Directorship at the department as he was appointed as the P.D. Leake Chair of Finance and Accounting at Cambridge (emeritus from 1980). Together with J.A.C. Brown he began theCambridge Growth Project, which developed theCambridge Multisectoral Dynamic Model of the British economy (MDM). In building the Cambridge Growth Project, they usedSocial Accounting Matrices (SAM), which also formed computable equilibrium model which then developed at theWorld Bank. He was succeeded as leader of the Cambridge Growth Project byTerry Barker. In 1970, Stone was appointed as the Chairman of the Faculty Board of Economics and Politics for the next two years. A company founded by members of the Department and limited by guarantee,Cambridge Econometrics, was founded in 1978 with Stone as its first honorary president. The company continues to develop MDM and to use the model to make economic forecasts. Before retiring from Cambridge in 1980, Stone served as the President of the Royal Economic Society for 1978–1980.
Stone in 1984 received theNobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for developing an accounting model that could be used to track economic activities on a national and, later, an international scale.
While he was not the first economist to work in this field, he was the first to do so withdouble entry accounting. Double entry accounting basically states that every income item on one side of the balance sheet must be met by an expenditure item on the opposite side of the accounting sheet therefore creating a system of balance. This double entry system is the basis of nearly all modern accounting today. This allowed for a reliable way of tracking trade and wealth transfer on a global scale.
He is sometimes known as the 'father of national income accounting', and is the author of studies of consumerdemand statistics and demand modeling,economic growth, andinput-output.[5]
During his acceptance speech Stone mentionedFrançois Quesnay as well as theTableau économique. Stone stated that it was one of the first works in economics to examine various sectors on such a global level and how they are all interconnected.
Stone married three times. In 1936, he married Winifred Mary Jenkins who was also from Cambridge. Both of them had a passion for Economics and started a monthly paper calledTrends, which was a supplement to the periodical,Industry Illustrated. It contained articles about the British economic conditions. Soon after, in 1939, he was asked to join theMinistry of Economic Warfare. The couple's marriage dissolved in 1940.
Soon after, In 1941 Stone married his second wife Feodora Leontinoff. Feodora died in 1956.
In 1960, he marriedGiovanna Saffi (1919–2009), great-grandchild ofItalian patriotAurelio Saffi, who became his partner in many of his works.[6] They collaborated for some projects in economics, for example in rewriting his book "National Income and Expenditure" in 1961.
Stone died on 6 December 1991 in Cambridge, aged 78. He was survived by his third wife Giovanna, and his daughter Caroline.
| Awards | ||
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| Preceded by | Laureate of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics 1984 | Succeeded by |
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