Biographical Details
Born in Australia in 1901, Robert Hall took a degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Queensland and was then awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford, where he was awarded a First in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) (“Modern Greats”) at Magdalen College in 1926.
His PPE tutor at Magdalen was T.D. (“Harry”) Weldon, who specialised in philosophy and politics, and was not an economist. According to Hall's biographer, ‘the fact that there was no specialist economics tutor meant that Hall's tuition in economics was inadequate' (Jones 1994: 28). Despite this, Hall was appointed Economics Lecturer and Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford (1926-1947). Indeed, as his biographer noted (ibid.: 33):Aware that his training in economics had been inadequate, he took the view that he had been appointed because he had got a First, rather than for his knowledge of economics...∣but∣ the engineering course in Queensland had given him a good mathematical foundation, and he found the elements of theory. were easy enough for him. But he found teaching the subject much more difficult. He had to teach himself in order to teach his students.
During the Second World War, Hall worked first in London (1939-1942), then in Washington, D.C. (1942-1945) for the Ministry of Supply (MoS), and later as apart-time Economic Adviser at the Board of Trade (1945-1947). As a representative of the MoS and working on post-war commodity problems, Hall took part in an important session on “The Future of International Investment”, and a roundtable discussion of papers by Victor Schoepperle, Frank Fetter and Charles Kindleberger, at the 55 th annual meeting of the American Economic Association in January 1943 (see Hall 1943: 355-357). Over the period 1945-1949, he was the first British representative on the Economic and Employment Commission established by the Economic and Social Council of the UN (see Jones 1994: 67-68).
Hall returned to Oxford after the war to resume his teaching and lecturing duties. He succeeded James Meade as Director of the Economic Section in 1947, serving in this position until 1953, and over the period 1953-1961 served as Chief Economic Adviser to the Treasury and various Chancellors of the Exchequer.
Hall was knighted in 1954, and became a Life Peer in 1969, taking the title Lord Roberthall. He actively served in the House of Lords, from 1970 to 1981 on the crossbenches, then, from 1981 to 1986, as economic spokesman for the Social Democratic Party. Hall was President of the Royal Economic Society from 1958 to 1960, giving as his Presidential Address what was to become his well-known Economic Journal article “Reflections on the Practical Application of Economics” (Hall 1959). He also gave the Sidney Ball Lecture “The Place of the Economist in Government” at Oxford in 1954 (Hall 1955), and the Rede Lecture on “Planning” at Cambridge in 1962 (Hall 1962).
Hall also served as a member of the Plowden Committee on Public Expenditure (1961—1962) and the Franks Commission on the reform of the University of Oxford. After leaving public service, he became a Director at Tube Investments, and an Advisory Director at Unilever. In 1963, Hall became Chairman of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and between 1964 and 1967 he was Principal of Hertford College, Oxford. He died in September 1988 (see Arndt et al. 1988; Jones 1994).
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