Austin Robinson was born in Farnham, Surrey, in November 1897. He was educated at Marlborough and Christ's College, Cambridge, where he read classics.

He served in the RNAS and the RAF (1917-19) and was subsequently a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (1923-26), a Cambridge University lecturer (1929-49) and Professor of Economics at Cambridge (1950-65). He was appointed Emeritus Professor of Economics in Cambridge in 1966 and was a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College (1931-93).

As well as his academic career Robinson was a Member of the Economic Section, War Cabinet Office (1939-42), Economic Adviser and Head of Programmes, Ministry of Production (1942-45), Member of British Reparations Mission, Moscow and Berlin (1945), Economic Adviser to Board of Trade (1946), Member of Economic Planning Staff (1947-48), Director of Economics, Ministry of Power (1967-68), Chairman of Council of National Institute of Economic and Social Research (1949-62) and Member of European Advisory Commission (OEEC) (1957-60).

He is best known for his books The Structure of Competitive Industry (1931) and Monopoly (1941), But also served as Assistant Editor and then Joint Editor of the "Economic Journal" (1948-70), Secretary of the Royal Economic Society and Treasurer (1950-59) and then President (1959-62) of the International Economic Association. Robinson was also one of the editors of the thirty volumes of JM Keynes's Collected Writings.

He was made OBE (1944) and CMG (1947), Knighted in 1975, and elected a fellow of the British Academy in 1955. Robinson married Joan Violet Maurice in July 1926, herself a distinguished economist. He died in June 1993.