Cambridge as a place in economics

In a letter to John Neville Keynes, in the attempt to persuade him to decline the offer of a Chair in Oxford and to remain in Cambridge, Henry Foxwell wrote in 1888: “it is much better that a study should be concentrated in a particular place. There arise many of these same advantages as in the localisation of an industry ” (Harrod 1951: 9). In this paper we purport to amplify this remark, by investigating the nature and importance of Cambridge as a place in economics. Here we concentrate our analysis on the post-Marshall era, being of course mindful that for the former period the term Cambridge school is synonymous with Marshall’s economics and endevours (Coats 1967). ‘Cambridge capital controversy’, ‘Cambridge monetary theory of business cycle’, ‘Cambridge equation ’ as a version of the quantitative theory of money: the geographical reference often crops up in the characterisation of the economic theories and approaches that developed in Cambridge (UK) between the 1920s and the 1960s with the contribution of economists who did not always share the same interests, background or attitudes, but who all lived and worked – for considerable periods of time – in that particular corner of the world. In this paper we have selected a group of economists and a span of time – essentiall