Richard Jones (1790 – 20 January 1855)[1] was an English economist who criticised the theoretical views of David Ricardo and T. R. Malthus on economic rent and population.

The son of a solicitor, Jones was intended for the legal profession, and was educated at Caius College, Cambridge.

Jones's method was inductive; his conclusions are based on the real world with the different forms which the ownership and cultivation of land, and, in general, the conditions of production and distribution, assume at different times and places.

He resisted taking the exceptional British state of affairs as representing the uniform type of human societies, and admitted path dependence in economics.

He maintained that with the growth of population, in all well-governed and prosperous states, the command over food, instead of diminishing, increases.