My friend Jonathan Perraton, who has died aged 58 of a heart attack, was a senior lecturer and post-Keynesian economist with an internationalist outlook. Publishing extensively across a range of economics journals, he famously identified strong and weak versions of Thirlwall’s law, pivotal to the literature on the constraints placed on low-income countries by export demand.
He was a long-serving and well-regarded member of the economics department at the University of Sheffield, and a rep for the University and College Union. He taught international economics to a generation of students, for whom he was a wonderfully inspiring lecturer.
He often talked to the media on a range of economic issues, including Brexit. I was once driving home from holiday and heard a voice on Radio 5 Live. Hang on, that’s Jon, I realised. We joked afterwards that he had been too moderate in the interview, saying that Brexit would not be “apocalyptic” – perhaps he was right; it might just be a slow car crash.
Born in Cambridge, Jonathan was the son of Jean (nee Warner), an environmental planner, and Hilary Perraton, who developed distance education programmes for developing countries. After leaving Chesterton comprehensive, Jonathan studied economics at Girton College, Cambridge, followed by a PhD at the University of Nottingham. In Cambridge, he was part of a diverse group of students, gathered together by the former ironworker and Ruskin graduate Frank Wilkinson.
In 1995 he was appointed Baring fellow in political economy at the University of Sheffield, becoming a senior lecturer by 2006, and was an active member of the Sheffield Humanist Society. Since childhood he had been passionately concerned about social and humanitarian issues.
As a nine-year-old he wrote to Harold Wilson urging him to stop the slaughter of whales. As a teenager he took the lead in organising the Cambridge Youth Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. During a stand-off between police and protesters at an anti-apartheid demo it was Jonathan who spoke out, asking a police officer for his badge number.
Jonathan grew up in a family that loved to walk; he enjoyed the Lakeland fells and the rugged parts of the South West Coast Path. He loved football, supporting Cambridge United, music (especially the Clash), and reading the Guardian – in choosing a holiday destination an important consideration was where he would be able to buy a copy.
Jonathan’s partner, Iona Tarrant, died in 2009. He is survived by his mother, Jean, and his sister, Claire.
