Name Joseph Nicholson | Role Economist | |
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Books The effects of machiner, Principles of Political Economy, The revival of Marxism, Strikes and social problems, Inflation ‑ Scholar's Choice E | ||
Professor Joseph Shield Nicholson LLD (1850–1927) was an English economist, born at Wrawby, Lincolnshire, the only son of the Rev. Thomas Nicholson, Independent minister at Banbury, and his wife, Mary Anne Grant.
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Life
Nicholson was educated at King's College London, Edinburgh, Cambridge, and Heidelberg. He was a private tutor at Cambridge (1876–80) and became professor of political economy at Edinburgh University in 1880. He was the first president of the Scottish Society of Economists, serving from its creation in 1897 until 1903.
Writings
Nicholson's writings represent a compromise between the methods of the historical school of German economics and those of the English deductive school. In his principal work, Principles of Political Economy (three volumes, 1893–1901), he closely follows John Stuart Mill in his selection of material, but employs statistical and historical discussion, instead of the abstract reasoning from simple assumption that characterizes Mill's work.
Nicholson resigned his chair due to ill health in 1925 and died in Edinburgh on 12 May 1927. He is buried with his wife, Jane Walmsley Nicholson, in the 20th-century extension to Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh, in the central section.