Hans Singer

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Sir Hans Singer
Born
Hans Wolfgang Singer

(1910-11-29)29 November 1910
Elberfeld, German Empire
Died26 February 2006(2006-02-26) (aged 95)
Brighton, England
Nationality
  • British
  • German
Spouse
Ilse Plaut
​
​
(m. 1933; died 2001)​
[3]
Scholarly background
Alma mater
Academic advisors
Influences
Scholarly work
Discipline
Prebisch–Singer thesis
InfluencedRudolf Meidner[5]

Sir Hans Wolfgang Singer (29 November 1910 – 26 February 2006) was a German-born British

Prebisch-Singer thesis, which states that the terms of trade move against producers of primary products. He is one of the primary figures of heterodox economics
.

Early life

He was born in

German Jew, Singer had intended to become a medical doctor before he was inspired to study economics after attending a series of lectures by prominent economists Joseph Schumpeter and Arthur Spiethoff in Bonn. Singer fled the rise of Adolf Hitler in 1933, arriving in the United Kingdom as a refugee.[7]

Career

In 1933, Schumpeter convinced

Manchester University
. His request was granted in 1946.

There, he authored the 1949 UN publication on Relative prices of exports and imports of under-developed countries, where he noted that the terms of trade for primary products had been declining for more than half a century, reversing the improving trend before 1870. Theoretically, this could happen if productivity increased faster in primary production than in industry, but this was hardly plausible. Instead, this meant that "the underdeveloped countries helped to maintain, in the prices which they paid for their imports, a rising standard of living in the industrialized countries, without receiving, in the price of their own products, a corresponding equivalent contribution towards their own standard of living".[9] Raul Prebisch read this report in manuscript form and incorporated both the data and the conclusions into his own report for the UN Commission for Latin America. [10] Singer's controversial conclusions were rejected by the subcommission and was the reason why Prebisch in turn avoided the general fate of UN authors to remain anonymous, the idea being to present the views as belonging to the individual author rather than being the objective, officially sanctioned position of the UN. [11] When Singer henceforth wanted to express these views, he too had to publish under his own name, which he did in a 1950 article on the costs of international trade.[12]

This drew criticism from fellow economists

Prebisch-Singer thesis. Since, it was well-known at the time that Singer was the author of the 1949 UN publication on relative prices, it was also referred to as the Singer-Prebisch theorem, to indicate the primacy of authorship.[13]
The fundamental claim of the hypothesis is that poorer nations that specialise in primary products such as raw materials and agricultural products will become the losers from the terms of trade when exchanging their goods for manufactures from rich industrialised nations. The theorem posed, and the falling terms of trade showed, that productivity gains made by the primary producer generated lower prices for industrial consumers, while productivity gains by industrial nations were reflected in greater output but not in lower export prices for industrial goods. In this exchange, all of the benefits of international trade went to the wealthy industrial nations, both as consumers and as producers.

As a result, Singer was a passionate advocate for increased foreign aid in a variety of forms to the developing world to offset the disproportionate gain to developed nations of trade. He attempted to create a "

soft-loan" fund to offer loans at interest rates below market rates to be administered by the United Nations, but it was systematically blocked by the United States and the United Kingdom, which wished to retain control of money flowing out of the UN.[citation needed] He was thus considered "one of the wild men of the UN" by Eugene R. Black Sr. of the World Bank and American Senator Eugene McCarthy. His ideas were influential in the establishment of the bank's International Development Association, the United Nations Development Programme, and the World Food Programme.[citation needed
]

Fellow economist

neo-Marxist development theorists such as Paul Baran and Andre Gunder Frank
, although these focused on transfers of profits as a mechanism of exploitation rather than the terms of trade. However, he was not normally considered a neo-Marxist himself and did not consider himself one.

Later life

In 1969, he left the UN to join the influential

Elizabeth II in 1994. In 2001 the UN World Food Programme awarded him the Food for Life award in recognition of his contribution to the battle against world hunger. [1] In November 2004, Singer was awarded the first Lifetime Achievement Award from the Development Studies Association. [2]

Singer died in Brighton on 26 February 2006.

Legacy

In commemoration and in honour of Sir Hans Singer the

School of Oriental and African Studies at University of London
in November 2011 at the German Development Institute in Bonn.

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ Toye 2006, p. 823.
  2. ^ a b Toye 2006, p. 821.
  3. ^ a b Toye, John (4 March 2006). "Professor Sir Hans Singer". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 9 May 2022. Retrieved 24 July 2021.
  4. ^ Toye 2006, p. 824.
  5. ^ Erixon 2011, pp. 110, 117.
  6. ^ Toye 2006, p. 820.
  7. ISSN 0013-0613
    . Retrieved 19 January 2019.
  8. ^ Leeson, P.F. and Nixson, F.I. (2004), "Development economics in the Department of Economics at the University of Manchester", Journal of Economic Studies, Vol. 31 No. 1, pp. 6-24. https://doi.org/10.1108/01443580410516233
  9. ^ United Nations, Relative prices of exports and imports of under-developed countries: A Study of post-war terms of trade between underdeveloped and industrialised countries. Lake Success/New York: Department of Economic Affairs, 1949, p. 126; quoted from J. Brolin, 'Unequal Exchange' in I. Naess & Z. Cope (eds), The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism, Palgrave Macmillan Cham, 2020, p. 2720
  10. ^ ECLA, The Economic Development of Latin America and its Principal Problems, Lake Success/New York: Department of Economic Affairs 1949; cf. J. Toye and R. Toye (2003), The Origins and Interpretation of the Prebisch-Singer Thesis, History of Political Economy, 35, 3, pp. 437-467
  11. ^ J. Toye and R. Toye (2003), The Origins and Interpretation of the Prebisch-Singer Thesis, History of Political Economy, 35, 3, pp. 437-467; J. Brolin, 'Unequal Exchange' in I. Naess & Z. Cope (eds), The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism, Palgrave Macmillan Cham, 2020
  12. ^ H. W. Singer, The Distribution of gains between investing and borrowing countries, American Economic Review, 40, 2, pp. 473-485.
  13. ^ J. Toye and R. Toye (2003), The Origins and Interpretation of the Prebisch-Singer Thesis, History of Political Economy, 35, 3, pp. 437-467

Bibliography

External links
Obituaries
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