Sydney Chapman (economist)

Sir Sydney John Chapman KCB CBE (20 April 1871 – 29 August 1951) was an English economist[1] and civil servant.

In 1899 he was appointed Lecturer in Economics at University College, Cardiff and in 1901 he returned to Owens as Stanley Jevons Professor of Political Economy.

In 1915, he was asked by the Board of Trade to head inquiries into wartime industrial organisation, initially on a part-time basis, but later full-time.

In 1927 he was appointed Chief Economic Adviser to HM Government and held the post until 1932, when he became a member of the Import Duties Advisory Committee.

Despite his retirement shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, he was placed on the 'Special Search List G.B' of prominent subjects to be arrested in the case of a successful Nazi invasion of Britain.

The fact that both the intensity and the duration of work vary makes it hard for economists to calculate the returns to various factors of production.