Sir Edward West (1 March 1782 – 18 August 1828) was a British judge who served in India and an economist. He is known for his statement of the law of diminishing returns in his Essay on the Application of Capital to Land (1815, p. 2):
The principle is simply this, that in the progress of the improvement of cultivation the raising of rude produce becomes progressively more expensive, or, in other words, the ratio of the net produce of land to its gross produce is constantly diminishing.
Here the gross produce means the value of total output and the net is the gross minus the cost of production and exclusive of profit and rent.
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Early life
He was born in 1782 (baptized 5 April 1782) to John Balchen West, Receiver General for Hertfordshire. His parents died when he was still very young and Edward was brought up by his uncle, Martin Browne Ffolkes, and his wife Fanny, daughter of Sir John Turner, 3rd Baronet, at Hillington Hall near King's Lynn. Edward's sister Frances later married Captain Lane of the 47th Regiment of Foot. His grandfather Temple West was a Vice-Admiral in the Royal Navy.