Leadership

From 1908 to 1943, Pigou was Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge. During that time he worked in a particularly hard and focused way. From early in his Professorship, Pigou was generally referred to as the ‘Prof’, especially by the few who were privileged to enter into his private life. One such person, Donald W. Corrie, who read and commented on the manuscript of Wealth and Welfare (Pigou 1912), recalled ‘a rapidity with which he [Pigou] could relax after serious work and plunge with boyish enjoyment into any sort of hair brained spree, and at [illegible] notice assume the gravity of the Professor of Economics in discussion with Layton, Fay or Keynes’ (Corrie to Saltmarsh, 19 February 1960, King’s College Archive Centre, Cambridge University: ACP1/Corrie).

However, to the general student body, the recollection of Pigou is perhaps slightly different from that of Corrie. Austin Robinson (1968), an undergraduate in Pigou’s classes, recalls Pigou’s eloquence and clarity of exposition, but also notes a degree of reserve: ‘We admired Pigou; after a lecture we would sometimes shyly ask him a question, and he would answer, either jocularly or even more shyly. But most of us as undergraduates hardly knew him outside a lecture room’. Perhaps the distance between the shy Pigou and his students was accentuated by his unusual mode of dress. According to Howarth (1978: 139), it was a moot point as to whether J.J. Thomson (the Nobel Prizewinning inventor of the mass spectrometer and discoverer of the electron from Trinity College) or Pigou (who would wear unusual combinations such as white gym shoes with black laces) was the worst dressed man in Cambridge. Indeed, Pigou’s dress sense during the first year of his Professorship was such a serious concern to Marshall that he wrote to Charles Fay on the matter: ‘Fay, I do wish you’d speak to Pigou on a personal matter—a rather delicate matter. I saw him coming out of Bowes’ shop in a Norfolk jacket with holes in both elbows. So bad for the Economics Tripos!’ (Marshall quoted in Saltmarsh and Wilkinson 1960: 18).

In regard to the dissemination of his own work, Pigou attempted to develop or refine his contributions without generally attending conferences. Rather, he would read published materials and respond formally, either via articles or noting corrections to errors made in subsequent editions of his books. He remained essentially a theoretical economist, developing his line of thought with little collaboration, although he did seek assistance in mathematical and other analysis (Austin Robinson 1968). For example, Pigou sought out the help of Keynes in the revising of Wealth and Welfare, and called upon the strong mathematical abilities of the young Frank Ramsey during the late 1920s (Duarte 2009). Ramsey provided mathematical assistance in relation to two propositions Pigou was developing, one being on credit and the other on unemployment, both of which were subsequently published as articles in the Economic Journal (Pigou 1926, 1927b). Ramsey also assisted Pigou with revisions and modifications that would appear in the third edition of The Economics of Welfare and in the development of Pigou’s treatise on public finance (Pigou 1928a). It has been argued by Collard (1996: 588, 2011: 245) and Duarte (2009: 461) that Ramsey’s two major economic articles, ‘A Contribution to the Theory of Taxation’ (Ramsey 1927) and ‘A Mathematical Theory of Saving’ (Ramsey 1928) directly arose from considerations resulting from his collaboration with Pigou during this time. This is an argument substantiated by correspondence from Pigou to Keynes: ‘Ramsey is writing out a paper on some results he got in the course of doing sums for me—with a marvellously simple generalised formula about taxes. Don’t let him be too modest to produce it for the Journal’ (Pigou to Keynes, before March 1927, quoted in Bridel and Ingrao 2005: 160).

During the late 1930s, Pigou would also seek the mathematical assistance of David Champernowne, who was appointed Lecturer in Statistics in 1938.¹¹ His method of supporting colleagues and potential colleagues also tended to be private in character, relying on deep reflection on text, and quite private discussion and correspondence. His mentoring and support for Joan Robinson is perhaps the best example of this, although it is not the only one.^{[1] [2]} Aslanbeigui and Oakes (2009) outline the considerable support Joan Robinson received from Pigou when she was working on The Economics of Imperfect Competition (Joan Robinson 1933), with Pigou even providing algebraic input for Robinson’s treatment of some issues. This work by Pigou was subsequently published in the Economic Journal as a note in the 1933 March issue (Pigou 1933b), although in the same note Pigou paid generous tribute to Robinson for her original insights. In the summer of 1939, Pigou wrote a letter taking the opportunity to advise her on her teaching. In regard to mentorship, the letter reveals that Pigou was not willing to constrain original scholarship or the dissemination of new ideas but, in the interests of recognising the depth and scope of past writers in the history of economics, he urged caution against extreme polemics other than in formative debate and discussion. With regard to his own writing, a key point is that he typically did not seek to emphasise differences between scholars.

At King’s College, Pigou also made numerous contributions to the Elector’s Committee for Fellowships, with his judgement on the intellectual talents of applicants held in very high regard. As Saltmarsh and Wilkinson (1960: 11) have highlighted: ‘His colleagues came to listen for his verdict, as foxhounds listen for the tongue of the oldest and sagest hound in the pack’. Notwithstanding Pigou’s worsening health problems as his period of tenure went on, his ‘sense of justice’ was recalled as an outstanding feature in handling the problems of running the Faculty during his Professorship. As Austin Robinson (1968) recalls, ‘If you were working with him, you had to satisfy him that what you proposed was a completely just solution of the problem at hand’. For example, notwithstanding his reputation for misogyny (Aslanbeigui 1997), Pigou was still regarded as a supporter of the women’s cause at Cambridge in the immediate post-First World War period (Howarth 1978: 36; Wilkinson 1980: 151).

However, the ‘Prof’ did not stamp his authority on the future direction of the economics programme at Cambridge in that he never attempted to shape the discipline in his own image, and he did not like formal meetings. The manner in which he worked—his quiet isolation and his innate shyness—did not lend itself to the qualities of leadership that Keynes would later wield especially among the younger generation of Cambridge economists who had collaborated with him during the development of The General Theory. Nevertheless, it was under the leadership of Pigou that a good number of prominent Cambridge economists were trained, including many of the younger Cambridge economists who gravitated into Keynes’s camp.

None of this means that Pigou was indifferent to Cambridge appointments. Rather, he was more concerned with the intellectual qualities of the appointee, and on that score he had more confidence in the judgement of Keynes than with appointing protegees who followed in his exact footsteps. Indeed, in 1935, he invited John Hicks to apply for the post of Lecturer at Cambridge. Hamouda (1993: 290) has speculated that Pigou’s job offer to Hicks was motivated by a desire to balance the authority of Keynes and his younger followers, on the one hand, with Pigou, Robertson and Hicks on the other. But another interpretation is also evident that is simpler, less Machiavellian and more consistent with Pigou’s personality. That is, notwithstanding the divide between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ welfare economics, with Pigou and Hicks on different sides of that divide, Pigou simply recognised Hicks’s great intellectual qualities and he sought to employ him on that basis. Interestingly, Hicks appeared to like Pigou and was happy to engage him in discussion on issues in economics, and he found a subtle way of achieving that end: ‘The thing to do is never to press him [Pigou], or argue with him; just throw out a remark to see if it tempts him’ (Hicks to Webb, 12 November 1935, quoted in Marcuzzo and Sanfilippo 2008: 86).

It is perhaps true that, from the mid-1930s, Pigou was regarded as somewhat ‘old school’, with the intellectual distance between him and the younger economists, including Kahn, James Meade and the Robinsons, growing over time. But for a largely singular scholar like Pigou, that distance may well have been more incidental than deliberate, and appeared more deliberate and cultivated than it actually was. Moreover, the distance was implicitly reciprocated by the younger economists, who were intent on extending economics and taking it in directions inspired by Keynes.^[3]

Pigou’s method of leadership is also revealed in his actions to smooth over the tensions which had developed at Cambridge during the 1930s. Dennis Robertson, who succeeded Pigou to the Professorship of Political Economy in 1944, had, unlike Pigou, continued to harbour some bitterness towards Keynes after the 1937 debates, leading to estrangement between the two scholars as the younger economists were gravitating towards Keynes’s circle. In a study of the correspondence between Pigou and Keynes, Bridel and Ingrao (2005) outline how the deterioration of Keynes’s and Robertson’s working relations came to a head with the formation of a research project investigating depression and recovery in Britain. Pigou is shown to have been sensitive to Robertson’s resentment at being excluded from the project and attempted to diffuse the situation by suggesting the formation of an advisory committee which would include Robertson, Keynes and himself. The members of the committee that proposed the original project, which had included Austin Robinson, Sraffa and Champernowne, bitterly fought Robertson’s inclusion on that advisory committee. Pigou’s attempt to smooth things over failed, with Robertson resigning from his position at Cambridge and taking an appointment at the LSE. However, the episode demonstrates Pigou’s sensitivity towards his colleagues. The sensitivity shown in this case was moreover not an isolated incident. For example, in his correspondence with Keynes during the Second World War, Pigou expresses general concerns for Keynes’s health and worries over Sraffas possible internment as an enemy, war having been declared between Britain and Italy. Pigou wrote to Keynes advising him that he had suggested to Sraffa to write to Keynes’s mother to ask her ‘to keep a friendly eye on his [Sraffas] mother when he gets pinched’ (Pigou to Keynes, 12 June 1940, quoted in Bridel and Ingrao 2005: 159).

• [1] Pigou freely advised others to do the same. As Harcourt (2012) notes: ‘Paul Samuelson gave Pigou oneof his articles—it may have been factor price equalisation in the 1940s or 1950s and Pigou asked had themaths been checked. Samuelson said he did maths. Pigou said, “No, I mean by a Cambridgemathematician”’.
• [2] Pigou also provided considerable support to Richard Kahn, particularly in the consideration andendorsement of Kahn’s Fellowship dissertation, providing advice to Kahn to publish the work withoutdelay, advice Kahn did not in the end act upon (see Aslanbeigui and Oakes 2010 and Harcourt 1991).
• [3] The relationship between Pigou and his younger colleagues is discussed in Naldi (2005).