Richard Lipsey
Encyclopedia
Richard George Lipsey, OC
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...

, FRSC
Royal Society of Canada
The Royal Society of Canada , may also operate under the more descriptive name RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada , is the oldest association of scientists and scholars in Canada...

 (born August 28, 1928) is a Canadian academic and economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...

. He is best known for his work on the economics of the second-best
Theory of the Second Best
In welfare economics, the theory of the second best concerns what happens when one or more optimality conditions cannot be satisfied. Canadian economist Richard Lipsey and Australian economist Kelvin Lancaster showed in a 1956 paper that if one optimality condition in an economic model cannot be...

, a theory of constrained optimization by government of the tax system, which he co-authored with Kelvin Lancaster
Kelvin Lancaster
Kelvin John Lancaster was a mathematical economist and John Bates Clark professor of economics at Columbia University. He is best known for the development of the Theory of the Second Best with Richard Lipsey...

, a mathematical economist of high standing.

Background

Born in Victoria
Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...

, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

, he received a Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 degree in 1951 from the University of British Columbia
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...

, a Master of Arts
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...

 degree in 1953 from the University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

, and a Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 in 1958 from the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

.

He was at one time married to Assia Wevill
Assia Wevill
Assia Wevill was a German-born woman who escaped the Nazis, lived in British Palestine and later in Britain, and is best known for her relationship with the English poet Ted Hughes. She killed herself and also her four-year-old daughter Alexandra Tatiana Elise . Six years earlier, Hughes's wife...

.

Career

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 the University of Essex
University of Essex
The University of Essex is a British campus university whose original and largest campus is near the town of Colchester, England. Established in 1963 and receiving its Royal Charter in 1965...

 in England. Returning to Canada, he held a brief position as a Visiting Professor at the University of British Columbia
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...

, before being appointed the Sir Edward Robert Peacock
Edward Robert Peacock
Sir Edward Robert Peacock, GCVO was a Canadian merchant banker, born in St. Elmo, Glengarry County, Ontario. He is perhaps best known as a director of the Bank of England, or for his role as Receiver General to the Duchy of Cornwall.-Early life:...

 professor of economics at Queen's University
Queen's University
Queen's University, , is a public research university located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Founded on 16 October 1841, the university pre-dates the founding of Canada by 26 years. Queen's holds more more than of land throughout Ontario as well as Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, England...

 in Kingston, Ontario
Kingston, Ontario
Kingston, Ontario is a Canadian city located in Eastern Ontario where the St. Lawrence River flows out of Lake Ontario. Originally a First Nations settlement called "Katarowki," , growing European exploration in the 17th Century made it an important trading post...

 in 1970. He was the Irving Fisher Visiting Professor at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 from 1979 to 1980. From 1983 to 1989, he was a Senior Economic Advisor at the C.D. Howe Institute, the economic and social think tank in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

. In 1989, he was appointed Professor of Economics at Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University is a Canadian public research university in British Columbia with its main campus on Burnaby Mountain in Burnaby, and satellite campuses in Vancouver and Surrey. The main campus in Burnaby, located from downtown Vancouver, was established in 1965 and has more than 34,000...

 and is currently a Professor Emeritus. He is also a co-founder of Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University
Simon Fraser University is a Canadian public research university in British Columbia with its main campus on Burnaby Mountain in Burnaby, and satellite campuses in Vancouver and Surrey. The main campus in Burnaby, located from downtown Vancouver, was established in 1965 and has more than 34,000...

'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 was the protagonist and protector of the doctrine of the Phillips curve
Phillips curve
In economics, the Phillips curve is a historical inverse relationship between the rate of unemployment and the rate of inflation in an economy. Stated simply, the lower the unemployment in an economy, the higher the rate of inflation...

, which held that a tradeoff existed between unemployment and inflation. At the 1968 American Economic Association meetings Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman was an American economist, statistician, academic, and author who taught at the University of Chicago for more than three decades...

 countered Lipsey's arguments in what was perhaps one of the great arguments in economics.

He is an Officer of the Order of Canada
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...

 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
Royal Society of Canada
The Royal Society of Canada , may also operate under the more descriptive name RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada , is the oldest association of scientists and scholars in Canada...

 and the Econometric Society
Econometric Society
The Econometric Society is an international society for the advancement of economic theory in its relation with statistics and mathematics. It was founded on December 29, 1930 at the Stalton Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio....

. In 2005, he won the gold medal for achievement in research from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

He is also the author or co-author of several economics textbooks including Positive Economics
Positive economics
Positive economics is the branch of economics that concerns the description and explanation of economic phenomena. It focuses on facts and cause-and-effect behavioral relationships and includes the development and testing of economics theories...

, Theory of the Second Best
Theory of the Second Best
In welfare economics, the theory of the second best concerns what happens when one or more optimality conditions cannot be satisfied. Canadian economist Richard Lipsey and Australian economist Kelvin Lancaster showed in a 1956 paper that if one optimality condition in an economic model cannot be...

and Economic Transformations:General Purpose Technologies and Long Term Economic Growth. The book won the 2006 Schumpeter Prize for the best writing on evolutionary economics over the previous two years. He was co-author, with Gordon R. Sparks and Peter O. Steiner, of Economics, a standard Canadian university textbook.

External links

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