John Hicks

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For other people named John Hicks, see John Hicks (disambiguation).

Sir John Hicks
John Hicks 1972.jpg
Hicks in 1972
Born
John Richard Hicks

(1904-04-08)8 April 1904
Warwick, England, UK
Died20 May 1989(1989-05-20) (aged 85)
Blockley, England, UK
NationalityBritish
InstitutionGonville & Caius College, Cambridge
London School of Economics
University of Manchester
Nuffield College, Oxford
School or
tradition		Neo-Keynesian economics
Alma materBalliol College, Oxford
InfluencesLéon Walras, Friedrich Hayek, Lionel Robbins, Erik Lindahl, John Maynard Keynes
ContributionsIS/LM model
Capital theory, consumer theory, general equilibrium theory, welfare theory, induced innovation
AwardsInformation at IDEAS / RePEc

Sir John Hicks (8 April 1904 – 20 May 1989) was a British economist. He was considered one of the most important and influential economists of the twentieth century. The most familiar of his many contributions in the field of economics were his statement of consumer demand theory in microeconomics, and the IS/LM model (1937), which summarised a Keynesian view of macroeconomics. His book Value and Capital (1939) significantly extended general-equilibrium and value theory. The compensated demand function is named the Hicksian demand function in memory of him.

In 1972 he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (jointly) for his pioneering contributions to general equilibrium theory and welfare theory.[1]

Early life

Hicks was born in 1904 in Warwick, England, and was the son of Dorothy Catherine (Stephens) and Edward Hicks, a journalist at a local newspaper.[2]

He was educated at Clifton College (1917–1922)[3] and at Balliol College, Oxford (1922–1926), and was financed by mathematical scholarships. During his school days and in his first year at Oxford, he specialised in mathematics but also had interests in literature and history. In 1923, he moved to Philosophy, Politics and Economics, the "new school" that was just being started at Oxford. He graduated with second-class honors and, as he stated, "no adequate qualification in any of the subjects" that he had studied.[4]