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Robert Giffen’s name seems likely to be known by students of economics for generations to come in relation to the famous result in the theory of consumer demand which bears his name but about which, so far as can be determined, he had nothing to say. Marshall originated the tradition when he associated the result with Giffen’s name in the third edition of his Principles in 1895 (p. 208).

Giffen was born in Lanarkshire. At the age of 13 he was apprenticed to a solicitor in Strathaven, and continued in the same vocation until 1860 (though during the last seven years of this period he resided and worked in Glasgow). Still only 23 years old, Giffen struck out on a career in journalism – in which he was to be successful in establishing his reputation in economic circles of the day. He begun as a sub-editor for the Stirling Journal, moved to London in 1862 to work at the Globe, transferred to the Fortnightly Review in 1866, and in 1868 became assistant editor at The Economist – a post at which he remained until his next change of vocation in 1876. He was also city editor at the Daily News between 1873 and 1876. Giffen’s third and final career was as a professional civil servant, first as chief of the statistical department at the Board of Trade, and then in 1882 as its Assistant Secretary. He retired from the civil service at the age of 60. Giffen served on numerous royal commissions (including the Gold and Silver Commission of 1886–8); he was editor of the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society (1876–91), President of that society (1882–4), twice presided over the economics section of the British Association (1887 and 1901), and was one of the founders of the Royal Economic Society. In short, he was one of those figures encountered frequently in British economics whose not inconsiderable power and prestige appears to be disproportionate to their actual contribution to economic science.

In so far as he was primarily a statistician, Giffen’s work did attempt to alert economists to the dangers of theory without measurement. His presidential address to the Royal Statistical Society in 1882 was devoted to the subject, and in 1901 as president of Section F of the British Association (his second term in that office) he returned to the same theme (see 1904, vol. 2, chs 13 and 28). Indeed, according to Higgs in his edition of this Dictionary (1925), Giffen’s statistical prowess was one of the factors which helped to secure the respect of theorists. His article on international statistical comparisons in the Economic Journal (1892b), for example, can be singled out for special mention since it treats for the first time a problem which has still not been adequately resolved. Of course, it was not always the case that Giffen’s careful mustering of the statistical evidence allowed him, any more than the theorists, to avoid the pitfalls of making predictions which subsequent experience has proven to be silly – witness his claim that the whole protectionist school would die out within a decade (1898, p. 16).

However, in the final analysis it is in Giffen’s attempts to provide reasonably accurate measurements of indicators like wage rates, economic growth (see 1884), and national product (1889) that one should isolate his main contribution. While it is true that subsequent work in this field has advanced well beyond Giffen’s early efforts, he remains one of the pioneers of applied economics in its modern sense.

It seems that Giffen was also a strong supporter of a Channel tunnel: not for one between England and France, but between Ireland and England. He died on 12 April 1910 and is buried in Strathaven.

Selected Works

  • 1872. (With B. Cracroft.) American railways as investment. London.

  • 1873. The production and movement of gold since 1848. In Giffen (1880).

  • 1877. Stock exchange securities. London: G. Bell & Sons.

  • 1880. Essays in finance. First Series, vol. 1. London: G. Bell & Sons.

  • 1884. The progress of the working class in the last half century. London: G. Bell & Sons.

  • 1886. Essays in finance. Second Series, vol. 2. London: G. Bell & Sons.

  • 1887. The recent rate of material progress in England. Address as President of Section F of the British Association. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 50, 615–647. Reprinted in Giffen (1904), vol. 2.

  • 1889. The growth of gapital. London: G. Bell & Sons.

  • 1892a. The case against bimetallism. London: G. Bell & Sons.

  • 1892b. On international statistical comparisons. Economic Journal 2(June), 209–238.

  • 1898. Protection for manufactures in new countries. Economic Journal 8(March), 3–16.

  • 1904. Economic inquiries and studies, 2 vols. London: G. Bell & Sons.