From Oxford Political Economy to Oxford Economics, 1922 to 1939

The 1920–21 academic year still found Oxford without a ‘School’ of Economics in the Oxford sense, and yet the number of lectures offered in economics was significantly greater than at any time in the previous two decades. Moreover, the core of economists stood at five — Edgeworth, Penson, H. Clay, J.A. Todd, and F.W. Ogilvie — a number higher than during the years prior to the First World War, while the core of economic historians stood at two — Price and Lennard. In addition, C.V. Butler, who was a tutor at St Anne’s College since 1914, now became active and began giving lectures. Finally, the distribution of lecture topics still favoured history and application while the involvement of historians and philosophers in the teaching of economics and economic history remained strong. Thus the prewar tradition of Oxford political economy seemed alive, well, and getting stronger at the dawn of the interwar period. However, the creation of the Final Honour School of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) set forces into motion that would result in a complete turnover in the makeup of the core economists at Oxford and thereby in the decline of the pre First World War Oxford approach to political economy.1