Peter Diderik Groenewegen, 1939–2018

In his chosen primary field, Peter Groenewegen was one of the finest scholars of his generation. This judgement goes to the depth, the range, and the precision of his historical research – richly informed also by a larger learnedness that grasped the wider context of texts.

Groenewegen was born on 13 February 1939 in Kerkrade, The Netherlands, his family migrating to Australia in 1952. He graduated from the University of Sydney, Bachelor of Economics (1st Class Honours) in 1961 and Master of Economics by research (with a thesis on A.R.J. Turgot) in 1963. He then undertook a PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science, awarded 1965 (on “Theories of Value, Production and Distribution from 1650 to 1776”).

Virtue, intellectual or otherwise, does not always receive its due reward; but Peter gained much institutional acknowledgement for his achievements: Professor of Economics at the University of Sydney from 1981 (the university of which he was continuously a member, in one form or another, from the late 1950s to his death, save for his doctoral sojourn at the London School of Economics in the 1960s); elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia in 1983; Australian Research Council Senior Research Fellow, 1991–95; Distinguished Fellow of the History of Economics Society in 2005; made Honorary Member of the European Society for the History of Economic Thought the same year; Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Society of Australia, 2010; and inaugural Distinguished Fellow of the History of Economic Thought Society of Australia the same year. Groenewegen retired from fulltime academic employment in 2002, but remained an Honorary Associate of his faculty, and Emeritus Professor, until his death.

Peter’s early work in the history of economics, growing out of his Master’s and PhD theses, concerned the formation of classical economics to 1776, with particular emphasis on the role and thought of the eighteenth-century French contributors, notably, A.R.J. Turgot. This research greatly contributed to a welcome correcting of the mid-twentieth-century Anglocentric provincialism of the discipline’s self-understanding of its history and origins, including also attention to Italian contributions – notably, Pietro Verri and Cesare Bonsana (Marchesi di Beccaria). It was an important element of a wider scholarly effort to rescue classical political economy from a “Whig history” of economics, wherein classical economics came to be perceived as a mere collection of primitive anticipations of the latter-day marginalist theoretical framework.

Then, a series of articles dealing with aspects of the life and thought of Alfred Marshall begins to appear from 1988, preparatory to the massive, meticulous and deeply thoughtful biography of 1995, as well as many publications on Marshall after that.¹ But while the work on the formation of classical economics and on Marshall are the two most salient features of Groenewegen’s long devotion to the history of economics, there are also very extensive contributions involving other aspects of the history of the science, for example: on the origins of the “supply and demand” terminology; the concept of division of labour; Piero Sraffa in relation to Marx; Marx’s conception of classical political economy; Robert Malthus; the formation of marginalism; one of Peter’s intellectual heroes, Jacob Viner; the internationalization of economics after 1945; and James Steuart’s indebtedness to Richard Cantillon.

Hence, while eighteenth-century French political economy and Marshall are the two major subjects of Groenewegen’s historical scholarship, it is testament to both the scale and range of his research that if, by way of a thought experiment, one were to remove the two sets of associated publications from his curriculum vitae, there would still remain a very substantial academic life. Peter’s research lifework as a whole resulted in a vast collection of publications: most particularly, when I last counted in 2011, over 60 journal articles; more than 70 chapters in books; 6 authored books (two of them co-authored), 11 edited books (of which, three co-edited), a substantial body of translations (in particular, Groenewegen 1977), and a very large number of contributions to scholarly reference works – with some further published contributions added in the years since then.²

If one knew nothing else of Peter but this, one could contemplate the magnitude and diversity of the research achievement and conjecture that he was one of those self-centred academics who pursues his own research without much contributing to the academic communities of which he is a member. In fact, this inference would be entirely wrong. Groenewegen made very considerable contributions of service to the global community of historians of economics and to the economics profession more widely. The specifics of all this, as a well as a more detailed account of his research history, is provided in Aspromourgos (2011); see also Groenewegen (1997b), Dollery (2002), Aspromourgos and Lodewijks (2004: 1–15). But there is more, as well, to a scholarly life than just these tangible contents of a curriculum vitae. The extensive formal service contributions Peter Groenewegen made to academic communities are only the most visible expression of a larger set of roles he fulfilled as colleague, advisor and mentor to very many scholars and academics around the world. This also is to be honoured, even if, or perhaps particularly because, it is under-recognized, in the too narrow and mechanical “metrics” by which academics are now commonly judged.

Supplementary bibliography of P.D. Groenewegen, 2003–2010

2003

“English Marginalism: Jevons, Marshall and Pigou.” In W.J. Samuels, J.E. Biddle and J.B. Davis (eds) A Companion to the History of Economic Thought, 246–261. Oxford: Blackwell.

“On Rereading Joan Robinson’s On Rereading Marx.” Review of Political Economy 15 (4): 509–519.

2004

(ed.) Australian Economic Policy, Theory and History: R.C. Mills Memorial Lectures, 1958–2003. Sydney: Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Sydney.

“Joshua Gee (fl. 1713–1748).” In H.C.G. Matthew and B. Harrison (eds) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 21, 716. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

“James Postlethwayt (d. 1761).” In Matthew and Harrison, op. cit., vol. 44, 998.

“Malachy Postlethwayt (c. 1707–1767).” In Matthew and Harrison, op. cit., vol. 44, 999–1000.

“Marshall, Alfred (1842–1924).” In D. Rutherford (ed.) Biographical Dictionary of British Economists, vol. 2, 739–745. Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum.

“The Economics of R.C. Mills: a Semi-Centenary Assessment.” In P.D. Groenewegen (ed.) Australian Economic Policy, Theory and History: R.C. Mills Memorial Lectures 1958–2003, 319–335. Sydney: Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Sydney.

2005

“A Book That Never Was: Alfred Marshall’s Final Volume on Progress and His System of Ethical and Political Beliefs.” History of Economics Review, no. 42: 29–44.

“Analysing the Changing Firm: Marshall, Veblen, Schumpeter and the Italian Contribution Viewed from the Perspective of the History of Economic Thought.” Storia del Pensiero Economico 2 (2): 143–152.

“Heckscher’s Notion of ‘the Fear of Goods’: a Critical Evaluation.” Istituzione e Sviluppo Economico 1 (2): 7–28.

“Notions of Competition and Organised Markets in Walras, Marshall and Some of the Classical Economists.” In Etudes d’Économie Walrasienne: Actes du 4ème Colloque de l’Association International Walras, 1–14. Reims: Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne.

“Was John Stuart Mill a Classical Economist?” History of Economic Ideas 13 (3): 9–32.

2006

“Alfred William Flux.” In D. Herz and V. Weinberg (eds) Lexicon Ökonomischer Werke, 139. Dusseldorf: Verlag Wirtschaft und Finanzen.

“John Kells Ingram.” In Herz and Weinberg, op. cit., 216–217.

“Thomas de Quincey.” In Herz and Weinberg, op. cit., 105–106.

“William Edward Hearn.” In Herz and Weinberg, op. cit., 184–185.

“Giving Advice to Governments.” In G. Becattini, M. Dardi and T. Raffaelli (eds) Elgar Companion to Alfred Marshall, 85–92. Cheltenham: Elgar.

“Interpreter of the Classics.” In Becattini et al., op. cit., 116–123.

“Life and Activities.” In Becattini et al., op. cit., 3–9.

“Teacher and Academic.” In Becattini et al., op. cit., 44–49.

2007³

Alfred Marshall (Great Thinkers in Economics Series). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

“Alfred Marshall’s Use of Adam Smith: Coming to Grips with an Aspect of Alfred Marshall’s Citation Practice.” European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 14 (2): 273–289.

“Reflections of a Marshall Biographer.” In R. Weintraub and E.L. Forget (eds) Economists’ Lives: Biography and Autobiography in the History of Economics, 355–366. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

“The Nature, Functions, and Value of Money: a Brief Exposition of Turgot’s Monetary Theory.” History of Political Economy 39 (2): 253–262.

“Walter Layton on the Relations of Capital and Labour: a Marshall Text Pur Sang?” History of Economics Review, no. 46: 19–31.

2008

“Alfred William Flux (1867–1942): a Mathematician Successfully ‘Caught’ for Economics by Marshall.” History of Economics Review, no. 48: 63–77.

2009

“Adam Smith, the Physiocrats and Turgot.” In J.T. Young (ed.) Elgar Companion to Adam Smith, 135–140. Cheltenham: Elgar.

“Forerunners of Marshall in the Industrial Districts.” In G. Beccatini, M. Bellandi and L. de Propris (eds) A Handbook of Industrial Districts, 73–77. Cheltenham: Elgar.

“Some Critical Perspectives on Böhm-Bawerk’s Capital and Interest, volume 1, A Critical History of Economic Theory, with Special Reference to His Treatment of Turgot, John Stuart Mill and Jevons.” History of Economics Review, no. 50: 31–45.

2010

“Marshall on Welfare Economics and the Welfare State.” In R.E. Backhouse and T. Nishizawa (eds) No Wealth But Life, 25–41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

“Marshall and Australia.” In T. Rafaelli, G. Beccatini, K. Kaldari and M. Dardi (eds) The Impact of Alfred Marshall’s Ideas: the Global Diffusion of His Work, 81–85. Cheltenham: Elgar.

“Marshall’s Treatment of Technological Change in Industry and Trade.” European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 17 (5): 1253–1269.

“Recent Marshallian Scholarship: an Overview.” In Rafaelli et al., op. cit., 9–14.

Notes

1 Groenewegen’s inaugural lecture as Professor of Economics also engages with Marshall, contrasting him with Adam Smith and Karl Marx concerning the place of history in economic analysis (Groenewegen 1982). After the biography, Groenewegen (1996, 1997a) also edited Marshall papers and essays.

2 A comprehensive Groenewegen bibliography to 2003 (but not including book reviews) is in Aspromourgos (2003: 7–18) or Aspromourgos and Lodewijks (2004: 256–266). The only difference between the two is that the latter includes Groenewegen (2003a, 2003b), which are absent from the former. Appended below is a supplementary bibliography, covering 2003–2010. It may be added that Peter’s second major area of research interest after history of economics was public finance, left aside here.

3 Not included here are nine entries by Groenewegen in J.E. King (ed.) A Biographical Dictionary of Australian and New Zealand Economists, Cheltenham: Elgar.