Robbins as innovator: the contribution of an essay on the nature and significance of economic science

Lionel Robbins's An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science (1932) made at least three important contributions: 1. constructing a more modern, focused, and general definition of economics, which continues to inform the best contemporary practice, 2. exploring the legitimacy of, and relationship between, empirical and a priori analyses in economics, and 3. demonstrating the fallacy of interpersonal utility comparisons, laying the groundwork for Hayek's subsequent critique of the mirage of social justice. The kernel of both the Essay, and the 1930-1932 lectures which Robbins based on it, is his definition of economics as "the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses." Robbins's critique of interpersonal welfare comparisons also follows from his definition. In light of his definition of economics, Robbins viewed external attempts to transfer or redistribute the burden of scarcity as unjustified by economic theory and unjustifiable given the scope of the discipline.