William Forster Lloyd

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William Forster Lloyd (1795 - 1852) was Drummond Professor of political economy at Oxford (where he was the successor of Nassau Senior) and a Fellow of the Royal Society.

He published several of his lectures. In his Two Lectures on the Checks to Population (18330 he introduced thew parable of "The Tragedy of the Commons" (whose theme was later to be developed by the ecologist Garrett Hardin). Lloyd observed that when pastureland is (the "commons") is available to all, cattle-owners have a short-term interest in increasing the size of their herds. But, unchecked, the size of the herds on the commons will soon exceed its carrying capacity. The commons will be doomed by overgrazing. The argument was used by Lloyd to dispute Adam Smith's idea of the "invisible hand". Some modern economists argue that the problem can be "solved" by assigning private property rights to the field.

In his Lectures on Population, Value, Poor Laws and Rent (1837) he introduced a concise and complete statement of the concept of diminishing marginal utility, and connected demand to value, but he presents neither derivation nor elaboration. Still this contribution places him clearly in the ranks of the Oxford-Dublin school of proto-Marginalists.

[edit] Major Works of William F. Lloyd

Lecture on the Notion of Value, as distinguished not only from utility, but also from value in exchange, 1833.
Two Lectures on the Checks to Population, 1833.
Four Lectures on Poor-Laws, 1835
Two Lectures on the Justice of the Poor-Laws and One Lecture on Rent, 1837.
Lectures on Population, Value, Poor Laws and Rent, 1837.