E. J. Mishan

Ezra J. Mishan (aka "Edward", 15 November 1917 – 22 September 2014^[1]) was an English economist best known for his work criticising economic growth. Between 1956 and 1977 he worked at the London School of Economics where he became Professor of Economics. In 1965, while at the LSE, he wrote his seminal work The Costs of Economic Growth,^[2] but was unable to find a publisher until 1967.^[3] In this work he expanded on his original 1960 thesis^[4] which stated that the “precondition of sustained growth is sustained discontent”, warning developing nations that “the thorny path to industrialisation leads, after all, only to the waste land of Subtopia”.^[5] The Costs of Economic Growth presaged many of the concerns of the Green movement that followed.

See also

Degrowth

Bibliography

• Welfare Economics, Random House, 1964.
• The Costs of Economic Growth, Staples Press, 1967.
• 21 Popular Economic Fallacies, Allen Lane, 1969.
• Cost-Benefit Analysis, Allen & Unwin, 1971.
• Pornography, Psychedelics and Technology: Essays on the Limits to Freedom, Allen & Unwin, 1980.
• Economic Myths and the Mythology of Economics, Prentice Hall / Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1986.
• Thirteen Persistent Economic Fallacies, Praeger, 2009.

References

1. Quah, Euston (7 November 2014). "EJ Mishan obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 December 2014.
2. Mishan, Ezra J., The Costs of Economic Growth, Staples Press, 1967.
3. Turner, Derek (2006). "The Costs of Economic Growth Ezra J. Mishan - Derek Turner interview". The Social Contract Volume 17, Number 1. Retrieved 17 October 2012.
4. "Review of The Economics of Underdevelopment", Economica 27 (May 1960).
5. Veldman, Meredith, Fantasy, the Bomb, and the Greening of Britain, Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp 252-8.