Marshall, Alfred

(born July 26, 1842, London, Eng.—died July 13, 1924, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire) British economist, one of the founders of English neoclassical economics. The first principal of University College, Bristol (1877–81), and a professor at the University of Cambridge (1885–1908), he reexamined and extended the ideas of classical economists such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo. His best-known work, Principles of Economics (1890), introduced several influential economic concepts, including elasticity of demand, consumer's surplus, and the representative firm. His writings on the theory of value proposed time as a factor in analysis and reconciled the classical cost-of-production principle with the theory of marginal utility. See also classical economics.

Find more information on Marshall, Alfred. Upgrade to Britannica Online for more on Marshall, Alfred.