John Cornwall: A Brief Appreciation

Abstract

A Festschrift serves to celebrate both an individual and the legacy of their work. In so doing, the contributions to Setterfield (1999) exude a sense of three of John Cornwall’s defining qualities as an economist. First, Cornwall has made a variety of important and lasting contributions to economics, spanning theory, application and methodology. Second, Cornwall’s contributions take economics seriously, i.e. they forego idle (and as it is currently practised, frequently cynical) game playing in favour of explicit and unyielding recognition of the social significance of economics and what this should mean to those who practise the discipline. Cornwall’s work has always been motivated by a desire to better the societies in which we live, or, as he puts it himself in reference to the work of those he most admires, ‘to do some good’. Finally, Cornwall’s care and attention as an advisor, as an ‘invisible hand’, always guiding but never interfering, has inspired his students in the arts of the scholar-teacher. It is his unique combination of these qualities that have endeared John Cornwall to so many of his colleagues and students.