Richard Jones

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Richard Jones.

The Warren J. Samuels Portrait Collection at Duke University

Richard Jones was a British economist and clergyman.

Jones was educated at Cambridge University, graduating in 1816. He entered the Church of England ministry and spent a period of time as a curate. In 1833 he was appointed professor of political economy at King’s College, London. He then succeeded the British demographer Thomas Malthus as professor of economy at the East India Company’s college at Haileybury (1835–55). He was also a tithe and charity commissioner.

(Read Thomas Malthus’s 1824 Britannica essay on population.)

Jones attempted to apply the inductive methods of science to economics. He was particularly critical of the analytical methods used by the prominent British economist David Ricardo. In his Essay on the Distribution of Wealth (1831), Jones was not only critical of Ricardo’s rent theory, but he criticized existing studies in economic history. His emphasis on historical and factual studies gives him a strong claim to be regarded as the founder of the English historical school in economics. He and Malthus were instrumental in the establishment of the Statistical Society of London, which later became the Royal Statistical Society.