Richard Lipsey | |
|---|---|
| Born | Richard George Lipsey (1928-08-28)August 28, 1928 (age 97) Victoria, British Columbia, Canada |
| Occupation | Economist |
| Spouses | |
| Awards | Order of Canada, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement |
Richard George Lipsey,OC FRSC (born August 28, 1928) is a Canadian academic andeconomist. He is best known for his work on theeconomics of the second-best, a theory that demonstrated that piecemeal establishing of individual first best conditions would not necessarily raise welfare in a situation in which all first best conditions could not be satisfied, an article that he co-authored withKelvin Lancaster.[1] He is currently Professor Emeritus of Economics atSimon Fraser University.
Born inVictoria,British Columbia, he received aBachelor of Arts degree in 1951 from theUniversity of British Columbia, aMaster of Arts degree in 1953 from theUniversity of Toronto, and aPh.D. in 1956 from theLondon School of Economics, where he studied under thesis director and futureNobel Prize winnerJames Meade.[2]
From 1955 to 1963, he held the positions of assistant lecturer, lecturer, reader and professor at the London School of Economics. From 1963 to 1969, he was a Professor of Economics, Chairman of the Economics Department, and Dean of the School of Social Studies at theUniversity of Essex in England.
Returning to Canada, he held a brief position as a visiting professor at theUniversity of British Columbia, before being appointed the SirEdward Robert Peacock professor of economics atQueen's University inKingston, Ontario in 1970.
He was the Irving Fisher Visiting Professor atYale University from 1979 to 1980. From 1983 to 1989, he was a Senior Economic Advisor at theC.D. Howe Institute, the economic and social think tank inToronto. In 1989, he was appointed Professor of Economics atSimon Fraser University and later becameprofessor emeritus.
He is also a co-founder ofSimon Fraser University's ACT (Adaptation to Climate Change Team), an initiative that works to assist effective adaptation to climate-related challenges through policy development and awareness-raising.
Lipsey wrote the econometric follow up article toWilliam Phillips' original article that introduced the curve that became known as thePhillips curve, which held that a tradeoff existed between unemployment and inflation. At the 1968 American Economic Association meetingsMilton Friedman countered Lipsey's and Phillips' arguments in what was perhaps one of the great arguments in economics. Recently Lipsey co-edited with William Scarth a three volume compilation of many of the most important articles on the Phillips curve.
He is also the author or co-author of several economics textbooks including a book onpositive economics (Economics published byOxford University Press in its 14th edition in March 2020 with Alec Chrystal as co-author[3]).
His book on growth, co-authored with Kenneth Carlaw and Clifford Bekar,Economic Transformations: General Purpose Technologies and Long Term Economic Growth won the 2006Schumpeter Prize for the best writing onevolutionary economics over the previous two years.
He was co-author, with Gordon R. Sparks andPeter O. Steiner, ofEconomics, a standard Canadian university textbook and now co-authored with Christopher Ragan.
He is an Officer of theOrder of Canada[4] and a Fellow of theRoyal Society of Canada and theEconometric Society. In 2005, he won the gold medal for achievement in research[5] from theSocial Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Lipsey was the second husband ofAssia Gutmann (later Wevill); they had met while she was enrolled in theUniversity of British Columbia, Vancouver.[6][7] They married in 1952 and later divorced.[8]
