The English economist Joan Violet Maurice Robinson (née Maurice; 1903-1983) was one of the foremost economists of her generation and the most accomplished, productive, and eminent female economist. She stood as the leading heterodox or dissenting economist of her time.

Joan Violet Maurice was born in Camberley, Surrey, England, in 1903 into a distinguished family in which individuals sought achievement in both the military and the church and remained firm in their beliefs. She was educated at St. Paul's Girls' School in London and then at Girton College of the University of Cambridge. In 1926 she married another English economist, E.A.G. Robinson. They spent the first two years in India where he was a tutor of the Maharajah of Gwalior and she a sometime teacher in a local school. They returned to Cambridge in 1928 and she commenced a career of serious contemplation, theorizing, research, and writing...