Denis Patrick O'Brien, FBA (born 1939 in

Knebworth Knebworth is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the north of Hertfordshire, England, immediately south of Stevenage. The civil parish covers an area between the villages of Datchworth, Woolmer Green, Codicote, Kimpton, Hert ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

, England, and died in 2023) was an English

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

who worked in

industrial economics In economics, industrial organization is a field that builds on the theory of the firm by examining the structure of (and, therefore, the boundaries between) firms and markets. Industrial organization adds real-world complications to the perfe ...

and the

history of economic thought History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

. O'Brien graduated in 1960 with a BSc (Economics) from

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. From 1963 to 1972 he was Assistant Lecturer, Lecturer and then Reader in Economics at

Queen's University Belfast , mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back? , top_free_label = , top_free = , top_free_label1 = , top_free1 = , top_free_label2 = , top_free2 = , established = , closed = , type = Public research university , parent = ...

. From 1972 to 1997 he was Professor of Economics at the

University of Durham Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by royal charte ...

where he was Emeritus until his death in 2023. O'Brien was elected to the Fellowship of the

British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...

in 1988.Prof. Denis O'Brien
at the website of the British Academy.

Major publications

* ''Information Agreements, Competition and Efficiency'' (with D. Swann), 1969. * ''J.R. McCulloch, A Study in Classical Economics'', 1970. * ''Competition in British Industry'' (with D. Swann, P. Maunder, W.S. Howe), 1974. * ''The Classical Economists'', 1975 (revised ed., 2004). * ''Competition Policy, Profitability and Growth'' (with W.S. Howe, D.M. Wright, R.J. O'Brien), 1979. * ''Authorship Puzzles in the History of Economics: A Statistical Approach'' (with A.C. Darnell), 1982. * ''Lionel Robbins'', 1988. * ''Thomas Joplin and Classical Economics'', 1993. * ''The Development of Monetary Economics: A Modern Perspective on Monetary Controversies'', 2007. Edited volumes: * ''The Correspondence of Lord Overstone'' (3 vols.), 1971. * ''Pioneers of Modern Economics in Britain'' (ed. and contrib., with J. Presley), 1981. * ''Economic Analysis in Historical Perspective'' (with J. Creedy), 1984. * ''Foundations of Monetary Economics'' (6 vols.), 1994. * ''Collected Works of J.R. McCulloch'' (8 vols.) * ''The Foundations of Business Cycle Theory'' (3 vols.), 1997. * ''A History of Taxation'', (8 vols.), 1999.

References

Secondary sources

* Creedy, John (2001) - "D.P. O'Brien's contribution to the history of economic analysis", in ''Historians of Economics and Economic Thought. The Construction of Disciplinary Memory'', ed. Steven G. Medema and Warren J. Samuels. * M. Blaug (ed.) - ''Who's who in economics'' (3d edition), 1999.

External reference

1939 births Living people English economists Historians of economic thought Alumni of the University of London Academics of Queen's University Belfast Academics of Durham University People from Knebworth Fellows of the British Academy {{UK-economist-stub