Kahn, Richard Ferdinand, Lord
KAHN, RICHARD FERDINAND, LORD
KAHN, RICHARD FERDINAND, LORD (1905–1989), British economist. Kahn, son of Augustus Kahn (1868–1944), a well-known educator and communal worker, was a disciple of the economist J.M. Keynes, whom he succeeded as bursar of King's College, Cambridge. Born in London, Kahn was educated at St. Paul's and Cambridge and became a fellow of King's College, Cambridge, in 1930. In 1951 he was appointed professor of economics at Cambridge. He was the author of the "multiplier theory," which deals with the ability to save and invest as against the propensity to consume. Kahn was extremely influential in the origins of Keynes' celebrated General Theory (1936) and was the originator of several of its crucial concepts. An authority on investment and international trade, Kahn was a member of several government committees, a part-time member of the National Coal Board (1967), and an adviser to banking firms. In 1955 he was appointed to the research and planning division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. He was created a life peer in 1965. Among his writings are "The Relation of Home Investment to Unemployment" (Economic Journal, 1931), and Payments Arrangements among the Developing Countries for Trade Expansion (1966). In early and later life Kahn was an observant Orthodox Jew.
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[John M. Shaftesley]