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H. Scott Gordon

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H. Scott Gordon (1924–2019) was a Canadian economist born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His seminal 1954 article Economic Theory of a Common Property Resource: The Fishery marked the beginning of the modern economics study of fisheries.[1] He spent most of his career teaching and writing in the history and philosophy of economics, including the books Welfare, Justice, and Freedom (1980),[2] The History and Philosophy of Social Science (1991),[3][4] and Controlling the State: Constitutionalism from Ancient Athens to Today (2002).

Education and teaching career

Gordon began his teaching career at Carleton University (then Carleton College) in Ottawa and organized the Economics Department there in 1948. Later, during the summers, he would return to Canada from his teaching post at Indiana University to teach the history of economic thought at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. For many years he was a Professor in both the Department of Economics and the Department of History of Philosophy and Science at Indiana University.[5]

The Tragedy of the Commons

Although many people are familiar with The Tragedy of the Commons, a widely-read 1968 essay by American ecologist Garrett Hardin (who argued that if there are no limits to use of a common-pool resource, the inevitable result is overuse and eventual destruction of the resource itself), most do not realize[citation needed] that the argument also had been made in more formal terms by Gordon as early as 1954 and even earlier in 1833 by the British economist William Forster Lloyd. Scott's most well-known and seminal research on the tragedy of the commons was found in a 1954 Journal of Political Economy paper The Economic Theory of Common Property Resource: The Fishery. The role of individual fishing quotas (IFQs) also known as "individual transferable quotas" (ITQs) was shown by Gordon in his original research about fishing economics.[6][7]

Biography

Gordon, in his role as a mentoring professor at Indiana University and elsewhere, influenced the history of philosophy and economics via many of his former students and associates including Margaret Schabas,[8] Robert Leonard,[9] Harold Kincaid,[10] D. Wade Hands,[11] and J. Alfred Broaddus.[12] In Welfare, Property Rights and Economic Policy - Essays and Tributes in Honour of H. Scott Gordon by T.K. Rymes the author celebrates Gordon as one of "Canada's most distinguished social scientist and economics scholars."[13] Rymes' book was cited in the International Journal of Transport Economics(1993).[14] For the period of 1977-1978, Gordon served as President of the Canadian Economics Association.[15] His papers are in an archival repository at Indiana University. John Davis of Marquette University reviewed History of Philosophy of Social Science by H.Scott Gordon in the Southern Economic Journal.[16]

References

  1. ^ Bjorndal, Trond; Munro, Gordon (2012). The economics and management of world fisheries (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 21. ISBN 978-0199576753.
  2. ^ Gordon, H. Scott (1980). Welfare, justice, and freedom. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0231049765.
  3. ^ Gordon, H. Scott. "The History and Philosophy of Social Science". wordpress.com. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
  4. ^ Gordon, Scott (1991). The History and Philosophy of Social Science. Routledge. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
  5. ^ Crutchfield, James A.; Zellner, Arnold (2010). "The Economics of Marine Resources and Conservation Policy". books.google.com. Retrieved 19 June 2019. ...[D]epressed economic conditions in the halibut fishery and H. Scott Gordon's (1954) influential article dealing with common property resource problems, with special reference to fishery conservation . . . .
  6. ^ Cochran, Jr., David M.; Reese, Carl A. (Spring 2012). Southeastern Geographer. University of North Carolina Press. p. 22. ISBN 978-0807872581. Evidence about IFQ systems began with H.Scott Gordon's (1954) seminal effort in the understanding of fishing economics. Gordon demonstrated why open access fisheries often perform poorly in economic terms . . . .
  7. ^ "Where Pope Francis Got It Wrong". Newsweek. 1 October 2015. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
  8. ^ Schabas, Margaret; Wennerlind, Carl (2008). David Hume's Political Economy. ISBN 978-1134362509.
  9. ^ Leonard, Robert (2010). Von Neumann, Morgenstern, and the creation of game theory : from chess to social science, 1900--1960. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511778278. ISBN 9780511778278.
  10. ^ Press, The MIT. "Harold Kincaid". The MIT Press. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
  11. ^ "Wade Hands · University of Puget Sound". www.pugetsound.edu. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
  12. ^ "Al Broaddus Economic Keynote Speaker". Retrieved 20 June 2019.
  13. ^ Rymes, T.K. "Welfare, Property Rights and Economic Policy - Essays and Tributes in Honor of H. Scott Gordon". Cambridge Press.
  14. ^ Rymes, T. K. "Vol. 20, No. 3, OCTOBER 1993 of International Journal of Transport Economics / Rivista internazionale di economia dei trasporti on JSTOR". www.jstor.org. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
  15. ^ "Organizational History, 1967-2018". Canadian Economics Association. Archived from the original on 2016-02-26. Retrieved 2019-06-20.
  16. ^ Published version. Southern Economic Journal, Vol. 59, No. 4 (April 1993): 835-836. DOI. © 1993 Southern Economic Association. Used with permission
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