A Study of Industrial Fluctuation. An enquiry into the character and causes of the so-called cyclical movements of trade.

London: P. S. King,, 1915. First edition of Robertson's dissertation, published after research and a fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge; from the library of William Beveridge. Robertson is known chiefly for his contributions to the study of the relationship between money, the trade cycle, and economic growth. 'In the Study of Industrial Fluctuation, he used historical evidence to argue that economic cycles had real (that is, related to investment and savings) as opposed to monetary or psychological causes and that some degree of fluctuation was a necessary part of the growth process. It was a thesis that challenged orthodox thinking in Britain and established Robertson as a possible precursor of real business cycle theory' (ODNB). Dennis Holme Robertson (1890-1963) made his most important contribution to economics in the fields of monetary theory and industrial fluctuation. He attended Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1908, initially to study classics, but then changed to economics in 1910. Robertson became a pupil of John Maynard Keynes, thus beginning a collaboration that was to last over twenty years. Provenance: from the library of William Beveridge and subsequently Harold Wilson; Wilson worked with Beveridge from 1937. "Wilson's interest in economics turned in a statistical and micro direction. The accumulation of facts was the road to grace. He would have been a much better disciple of Sidney Webb than of Maynard Keynes. The man to whom he in fact became a disciple was neither Webb nor Keynes but William Beveridge, who in 1937 came from the directorship of the London School of Economics to be master of University College, Oxford. In view of the emotional and intellectual coolness of both Wilson and Beveridge, however, apprentice would be a better word than disciple. Wilson did not like Beveridge, and Beveridge was reported as regarding Wilson as 'a useful machine, not as a person' (Pimlott, 63). However, the two men worked together on unemployment statistics for over a year, in effect engaged on deconstructing Keynes, treating the subject as a sum of maladjustments more than a simple product of demand deficiency. This resulted in Wilson being elected a junior research fellow of University College in 1938." (Roy Jenkins in ODNB). Octavo. Original red cloth, spine lettered gilt, front board lettered in blind. Bookplate of the economist William Beveridge to front pastedown, subsequently owned by Harold Wilson, future Labour prime minister, with his occasional pencil annotations. Spine frayed at foot, head of rear joint split, joints and corners rubbed, boards slightly soiled. Bookblock cracked in the gutter in a couple of places, small adhesion to the last leaf, transferring part of the imprint to the facing page, a few edges chipped