CHAMBERLIN (Edward H.)
The Origin and Early Development of Monopolistic Competition Theory.
A presentation copy, initialled ‘EHC’ by Chamberlin below a ‘Compliments of the Author’ stamp, with the recipients name, Professor Sir Eric Roll (1907-2005), Baron Roll of Ipsden, included above in Chamberlin’s hand. Roll was a Professor of Economics, a Director of the Bank of England from 1968 to 1977, and chairman of S. G. Warburg & Co. His works include the classic History of Economic Thought (1938).
‘Chamberlin’s Theory of Monopolistic Competition (1933) was published a few months before Joan Robinson’s Economics of Perfect Competition, and Chamberlin spent the rest of his life this one great work and fighting against the tendency to lump to the two books together as simply alternative statements of the same new microeconomics’ (Blaug). The present article charts the development of his thought, with reference to Robinson as well as early critics.
Chamberlin was a ‘major innovator in modern microeconomic theory’, and did much to break down the unrealistic, polar model of monopoly and pure competition (New Palgrave).
