{{Short description|British economist}} {{EngvarB|date=September 2017}} {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2017}} {{Infobox economist | school_tradition = Keynesian economics | image = | caption = | honorific_prefix = The Right Honourable | name = The Lord Kahn | birth_name = Richard Ferdinand Kahn | birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1905|8|10}} | birth_place = Hampstead, England, UK | death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1989|6|6|1905|8|10}} | death_place = Cambridge, England, UK |parents = Augustus Kahn (father) <br> Regina Schoyer (mother) | field = Political economy | influences = Gerald Shove, John Maynard Keynes | contributions = Economic multiplier | doctoral_students = Luigi Pasinetti | notable_students = Richard Stone }}

'''Richard Ferdinand Kahn, Baron Kahn''', CBE, FBA (10 August 1905 – 6 June 1989) was a British economist.

== Life and career==

Kahn was born in Hampstead into the orthodox Jewish family of Augustus Kahn, inspector of schools and former German schoolmaster, and Regina Schoyer. He was brought up in England and educated at St Paul's School, London. He attended King's College, Cambridge.<ref name="encjk">{{cite web |title=Encyclopaedia Judaica: Kahn, Richard Ferdinand, Lord |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0011_0_10600.html |publisher=The Gale Group |access-date=27 October 2012 |author=John M. Shaftesley |year=2008}}</ref> Kahn took a 1st in Mathematics, Part I, at Cambridge, followed in 1927 by a 2nd in Physics in the Natural Sciences tripos. Taught economics by Gerald Shove and John Maynard Keynes from 1927 to 1928, he gained a 1st in Economics, Part II, in 1928. In 1930, he was elected a Fellow of King's College.<ref name="palgrave">{{cite journal |author=Luigi L. Pasinetti |journal=The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics |year=2008 |doi=10.1057/9780230226203.0879 |url=http://www.dictionaryofeconomics.com/article?id=pde2008_K000002 |access-date=30 October 2012 |title=Kahn, Richard Ferdinand (1905–1989) |pages=660–662 |editor1-first=Steven N.|editor1-last=Durlauf|editor2-first=Lawrence E.|editor2-last=Blume |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=978-0-333-78676-5 |author-link=Luigi Pasinetti |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Kahn worked in the Faculty of Economics and Politics from 1933. He became Director of Studies for economics students at King's College in 1947, a post he held for four years. Kahn was appointed professor of economics in 1951, and succeeded Keynes as Bursar of King's College.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp?id=EAD/GBR/0272/PP/RFK |title=The Papers of Richard Ferdinand Kahn, RFK |publisher=King's College Archive Centre |location=Cambridge |access-date=27 October 2012 |archive-date=21 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121021123952/http://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp?id=EAD%2FGBR%2F0272%2FPP%2FRFK |url-status=dead }}</ref> He served in numerous other government and agency positions, such as the research and planning division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe in 1955 and the UK National Coal Board in 1967.<ref name="encjk" /> Kahn retired from Cambridge in 1972, but continued to live at King's College.

==Economic theory== Kahn was one of the five members of Keynes' Cambridge Circus. He was also one of Keynes' closest collaborators on the creation of Keynes' ''General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kahn |first1=Richard F. |title=The making of Keynes' general theory |date=2011 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=9780521189750 |url=http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item6038419/?site_locale=en_GB |edition=Reprint of 1984 first |access-date=30 October 2012}} Peter Clarke, ''The Keynesian Revolution in the Making, 1924–1936'', Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780198202196.do</ref> His most notable contribution to Keynesian economics was his principle of the multiplier. The multiplier is the relation between the increase in aggregate expenditure and the increase in net national product (output).<ref name="palgrave" /> It is the increase in aggregate expenditure (for example government spending) that causes the increase in output (or income).<ref>{{cite journal |title=Kahn and Economic Dynamics |journal=Cambridge Journal of Economics |year=1994|volume=18|issue=1|pages=73–76 |url=https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/cambje/v18y1994i1p73-76.html |access-date=27 October 2012 |author=Richard Goodwin |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=UK}}</ref> His findings on the multiplier were first published in his 1931 article, "The Relation of Home Investment to Unemployment".<ref>{{cite journal |journal=The Economic Journal |date=June 1931|volume=41|issue=162 |jstor=2223697 |author=R. F. Kahn |title=The Relation of Home Investment to Unemployment |pages=173–198|publisher=Wyley-Blackwell |doi=10.2307/2223697}}</ref> There has been extensive debate on whether Kahn's thinking on the multiplier was foreshadowed or aided by the work of other economists such as Lyndhurst Giblin.<ref>See, e.g., Donald Markwell, ''Keynes and Australia'', Reserve Bank of Australia, 2000, pages 34–7. http://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2000/pdf/rdp2000-04.pdf</ref>

==Public life and politics== Kahn was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1946<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=37598 |date=13 June 1946 |page=2784 |supp=y}}</ref> and became a Fellow of the British Academy in 1960, and was created a life peer with the title '''Baron Kahn''', of Hampstead in the London Borough of Camden on 6 July 1965.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=43708 |date=9 July 1965 |pages=6519–6520 }}</ref> He was sympathetic to the Gaitskellite wing of the Labour Party, and in the 1950s was part of an expert group that advised Gaitskell on economic policy.<ref>{{cite news |title=Lord Kahn |work=The Times |date=8 June 1989 |page=18}}</ref> Like Gaitskell (but unlike most Gaitskellites), he opposed Britain's attempts to join the European Economic Community (EEC), and in 1971 was one of 100 economists who signed a letter to ''The Times'' claiming that the economic effects of EEC membership would be unfavourable to Britain.<ref>{{cite news |title=Letters to the editor: How the economists divide |work=The Times |date=22 October 1971 |page=13}}</ref> Despite his anti-EEC credentials, Kahn nevertheless joined the staunchly European Social Democratic Party (SDP) upon its foundation in 1981, and sat on that party's benches in the House of Lords.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Crewe |first1=Ivor |last2=King |first2=Anthony |title=SDP : the birth, life and death of the Social Democratic Party |date=1995 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=0198280505 |page=478}}</ref>

== Selected works == * {{cite book |author= Wicksell, Knut |author-link= Knut Wicksell |title= Interest and Prices (''Geldzins und Gütepreise'') A Study of the Causes Regulating the Value of Moneey |translator= Kahn, Richard |url= https://archive.org/details/interestandprice033322mbp/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater |place= London |publisher= Macmillan and Co., Limited for the Royal Economic Society |year= 1936 |via= Internet Archive}}

==References== {{Reflist|30em}}

==Further reading== * N. Aslanbeigui and G. Oakes. ''The Provocative Joan Robinson: The Making of a Cambridge Economist'', Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2009, pp.&nbsp;103–8, 125–33 et passim. {{ISBN|9780822345381}}

{{Keynesians}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kahn, Richard}} Category:1905 births Category:1989 deaths Category:20th-century British economists Category:Keynesians Category:English people of German-Jewish descent Category:Social Democratic Party (UK) life peers Category:Liberal Democrats (UK) life peers Category:Fellows of the British Academy Category:Fellows of King's College, Cambridge Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:People educated at St Paul's School, London Category:Jewish British politicians Category:Life peers created by Elizabeth II