Robert E. Rowthorn (1939—)

Paul Ormerod

Introduction

Robert (Bob) Rowthorn’s writings embody the fine tradition of Cambridge radicalism. His interests have ranged widely, from the problems of Britain’s regions to more general questions of economic development, to key issues relating to the distribution of income between capital and labour, and to important social questions such as marriage, family structure, and immigration. In short, throughout his career, Rowthorn has worked as a political economist, addressing issues of importance to policy, rather than simply displaying mathematical prowess in abstruse areas of economic theory.

Rowthorn could so easily have followed a conventional academic career, his CV filled with technical papers in journals such as Econometrica or the Review of Economic Studies, unconcerned about major political issues. He grew up in South Wales, but his background was very much that of the conservative middle class, his father being a senior officer in the police force. He won a scholarship to Jesus College, Oxford, where he read not Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE), but mathematics. Rowthorn was an outstanding student, winning the prize for the best results of his year in the final examinations. A research career

P. Ormerod (*)

Partner, Volterra Partners, UK

Visiting Professor, Centre for the Study of Decision-Making Uncertainty, University College London, UK e-mail: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

R.A. Cord (ed.), The Palgrave Companion to Cambridge Economics,

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-41233-1_49

beckoned, and his graduate work began in mathematics, before he switched in 1962 to take the BPhil in economics, then, as now, a two-year course.

In the 1960s, when Rowthorn was receiving his initiation into economics, Cambridge scholars such as Nicholas Kaldor and Joan Robinson were major world figures within academic economics. Indeed, it was to Cambridge, and its challenges to orthodox thinking, to which Rowthorn was attracted, becoming a Research Fellow at Churchill College in 1964. Rowthorn’s politics were increasingly left wing; in fact, for many years he was a member of the Communist Party. The British Communist Party, it must be stressed, by the 1960s had become very distinctly non-Stalinist, and over the next couple of decades, many interesting contributions to political economy were made by its members. Rowthorn himself has never been willing to subscribe to a dominant orthodoxy of whatever kind. Indeed, throughout his entire career, his work has challenged received opinions on a wide range of topics. In the atmosphere of the Cambridge of the 1960s, he flourished. His intellectual qualities were obvious, and by the early 1970s, he had established himself as a Fellow of King’s, a University Lecturer, and a member of the Faculty Board.

To modern-day academics, continually harassed by the demands of the Research Excellence Framework, the fact that Rowthorn published no papers until 1970 may seem incredible. But Cambridge, and King’s College in particular, has over the years proved the ideal environment for a scholar of his abilities. Freed from the pressure of producing a constant stream of articles in so-called top journals, Rowthorn has been able to apply himself to whatever topic he considered important.

In return, he has been a true servant of both the College and the Faculty. Within King’s, he was a dedicated teacher of both economics and econometrics for decades. He has served on the College Council, the Estates Committee, the Investment Committee, and the Senior Salaries Committee. Within the Faculty, he rose to become a Professor in 1991, serving on many committees and becoming Head of Department in 2002.

Rowthorn developed close international academic links, having visiting appointments at many universities, especially in Australia, Italy, and Japan. In the late 1990s, he had several spells at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). At a stage in his career when many academics are effectively resting on their past achievements, during the decade of the 2000s, when well into his 60s, Rowthorn paid many visits to the Santa Fe Institute. Santa Fe is renowned of course for the innovative, multidisciplinary nature of its work.

His work has not been confined to the world of academe. In addition to the IMF affiliation already mentioned, Rowthorn has been a frequent consultant to both the United Nations Conference on Trade and

Development (UNCTAD) on global integration and structural change and the International Labour Organisation on employment and wages. These topics have been central to his academic writings, and as a political economist, Rowthorn has combined both theory and practice with these links. In keeping, too, with his long-standing interest in regional policy, he has consulted with the European Commission and various UK ministries over the years. His interest in policy remains just as strong as it has ever been. In 2014, for example, he and I collaborated on a paper for the Mayor of London considering long-term scenarios for the UK economy in and out of the European Union.

Rowthorn has never been afraid to court controversy. Perhaps the most notorious episode, which almost ended his career, was the famous Garden House riot in 1970. Greece at the time was in the final throes of a military government. A major promotional event for the regime was due to be held at the Garden House, then, as now, one of the leading hotels in Cambridge. As a charismatic young Assistant Lecturer, Rowthorn had great status amongst the enraged student left. A demonstration took place which rather got out of hand. Substantial damage was caused to property, and several students were convicted and sent to jail. After what were perhaps a few anxious moments, Rowthorn survived the episode unscathed.

During the past 15 years or so, again at a stage in his career when many academics have laid their laptops to rest, Rowthorn has provoked the rage of the metropolitan liberal elite with a series of powerful articles in political journals such as Prospect. In this journal, he wrote a seminal attack on the concept of multiculturalism, one which gave other prominent centre-left intellectuals the opportunity to express their own long-harboured doubts. He ran a study group and wrote extensively on family structures, pointing out the damage caused, particularly to the poor, by the fashionable idea that all such structures are of equal merit in terms of outcomes. More recently, he has intervened in the debate on the impacts of immigration.