Category: Economists

Categories
Economists Harvard Seminar Speakers

Harvard. Galbraith’s Special Tuesday Evening Seminar, 1973

 

One of the delights of working with the papers of John Kenneth Galbraith is that the man was simply incapable of writing a straight memo. Some flash of wit or felicitous use of the English language always breaks in. The following announcement gives us some insight into the sort of university service that Galbraith most gladly provided. Soft power was his instrument of choice for departmental politics.

___________________

SPECIAL TUESDAY EVENING SEMINAR

As in earlier years, Professor Galbraith will conduct a series of evening discussions for first year graduate students and others who are interested. Meetings will be in the Littauer Lounge at 7 o’clock, and participants are urged to arrive reasonably on time. They may leave when they wish. Following very brief introductory comments by Professor Galbraith and guests, the subject will be open for discussion. No competently presented argument, however inconvenient, will be denied a hearing. Discussion will continue as long as the audience or the supply of useful ideas endures. This year’s subject and dates are listed below. The guest list is still tentative.

 

October 2, 1973—THE ECONOMICS OF THE PRESENT INFLATION

Guests:
Hendrik S. Houthakker
James S. Duesenberry
John Dunlop

October 16, 1973—THE CORPORATION: IS IT RESPONSIBLE: HAS IT BOUGHT THE COUNTRY

Guests:
Theodore Levitt
Marc Roberts
Abram Chayes
Richard Caves

October 30, 1973—WHAT AND HOW SHOULD ECONOMICS BE TAUGHT AND A Ph.D. EARNED OR ACQUIRED

Guests:
Dale Jorgenson
Robert Dorfman
Sam Bowles
Art McEwan

November 13, 1973—WHAT ARE THE ECONOMICS OF SEX DISCRIMINATION, ARE WOMEN ECONOMIC ARTIFACTS

Guests:
Carolyn Bell
Betsy Munzer
Hazel Denton
Arthur Smithies
Lester Thurow

December 4, 1973—ECONOMICS AND THE PUBLIC PURPOSE

An evening for or against the book. (On this evening, a reasonable quantity of champagne of indifferent quality will be supplied from the accrued royalties, if any)

Guests:
John Kenneth Galbraith
Steve Marglin
Zvi Griliches

 

Source: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. John Kenneth Galbraith Papers. Box 78. Series 5. Harvard University File, 1949-1990. Folder: “Courses, Non-credit seminar1973”.

Image Source: John Kenneth Galbraith in academic regalia from the Harvard Class Album, 1968.

Categories
Chicago Economists

Marxian economics. Letter exchange of Konüs and Bronfenbrenner, 1966

 

Today’s post is a touching reunion after some thirty years of the minds of the American economist, Martin Bronfenbrenner (Chicago Ph.D., 1939) and the Russian mathematical economist Alexander A. Konüs. As far as I know these two scholars never actually met. The first time Bronfenbrenner encountered work of Konüs was in helping to prepare a translation of a 1924 paper by Konüs written in Russian that Henry Schultz was interested in. That paper, but especially its translation that was published in Econometrica in 1939 after Schultz’s death, has become one of the classics in the theory of cost of living indexes. The winding path of the paper from the Moscow Economic Bulletin of the Institute of Economic Conjuncture to Econometrica is described in Schultz’s introduction:

Konüs paper was published in Russian in 1924, and thus far our only knowledge of it has been the incidental, though appreciative, observations regarding it in Bortkiewicz‘s review of Haberler‘s book on index numbers published in 1928. It is this inadequate summary of Bortkiewicz which Staehle used in 1934 in his important work on international comparisons of cost of living and which constitute a point of departure for his own researches.

From my first reading of Dr. Staehle’s manuscript I got the feeling that there was more to the Konüs condition than was evident from the Staehle-Bortkiewicz statement of it, but could not afford the time to look into the matter. In 1934-35, however, I was called upon to prepare a few lectures on the bearing of the modern theory of utility and exchange on the problem of index numbers, and I decided to look into the original paper by Konüs. Not being able to read Russian, I had a translation prepared of it which has been used in my classes since then.*

*I am grateful to the following graduate students for their reports on various aspects of index-number theory: Miss Fredlyn Ramsey, Mr. Orvis Schmidt, Mr. Martin Bronfenbrenner, Mr. Jacob L. Mosak, and Mr. H. Gregg Lewis.

Source:  Henry Schultz, A Misunderstanding in Index-Number Theory: The True Konüs Condition on Cost-of-Living Index Numbers and Its Limitations, Econometrica, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Jan., 1939), pp. 1-9.

Some three decades later, Bronfenbrenner and Konüs exchanged letters on the subject of modern adaptations of Marxian economic theory and Martin Bronfenbrenner reveals some of his family history.

_____________

Letter from Alexander Konüs to Martin Bronfenbrenner
7 July 1966

Dear Professor Bronfenbrenner,

It was a pleasure for me to know that the author of the pro-marxist article in the “American economic review” with the significant subtitle “Cuius regio eius religio” (translation: the religion of the ruler of the realm is the religion of the realm) [“Notes on Marxian Economics in the United States” AER Dec. 1964 ] is the praticipator [sic] of the excellent translation into English of my paper of 1924. I am greatly indebted for this translation to you and to Dr. Jacques Bronfenbrenner.

Your article “A macroeconomic translation of capital”, the reprint of which I received with gratitude, and the article “The Marxian macroeconomic model” in “KYKLOS”, vol. XIX-1966-Fasc. 2, are very interesting and important. I have delayed to communicate you my comments because I thought that my attitude to some points of your paper is obvious from the “Notes to articles by L. Johansen “Labour theory of value and marginal utilities” the reprint of which I sent you (“Economic of planning”, vol. 4, N 3, 1964).

As you could see in my “Notes” the problem is not the “translation” of the “Capital” but rather the “revision” of the 3-d volume to some degree from the point of view of modern economics.

The first key stone of this “revision” was laid by L.v.-Bortkiewicz in his “Zur Berichtigung der grundlegenden theoretischen Konstruction von Marx im dritten Band des “Kapital” (“Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik”, III Folge, B. 34, H. 3, 1907). [English Translation] The main assertion of Marxist labour theory of value is: “the sum of the profits in all spheres of production must equal the sum of the surplus values and the sum of the social product equals the sum of its value” (“Capital”, vol. 3, ch. X). So Bortkiewicz has proved that this assertion is valid only in the case when organic composition of advanced capital is the same in all departments and when consequently the prices coincide with values.

Bortkiewicz’s conclusion is considered, for example by Hans Peter (“grundprobleme der theoretischen Nationalökonomie”, 1933), as the failure of the labour theory of value. As to me I should like to attract the attention to the fact that Marx himself did not publish the theory of prices of production (although he assumed it more than twenty years) because he did not think this theory sufficiently perfect.

The new approach developed in my “Notes to the article by L. Johansen “ is cleared up if we will take into consideration the supposition in one of the models of professor Michio Morishima: “…capital goods are not subject to purchase and sale, only their services being traded on the market” (Equilibrium Stability and Growth”, 1964, p. vii).

Then instead of “depreciation of fixed capital instruments involved in producing W´´ the constant part of advanced capital C in your equations must include the rents paid for the use of durable capital goods as the prices of these goods compared with their values.

Consequently the source of the profit of the owners of buildings and machinery is in the surplus labour spent during their production (the conditions of reproduction are implied).

The main thing is that the exchange value of a commodity is realized not in its sale but in the process of realization of its use value, i.e. in its consumption.

Another basic conception is that the organic composition of advanced capital is not dependent on its technical composition but it is affected by economic considerations.

The equality of values and prices follows immediately from your equations based on Marx’s transformation:

(1) {{w}_{1}}={{c}_{1}}+{{v}_{1}}+{{s}_{1}}\text{ ;}  (2) {{w}_{2}}={{c}_{2}}+{{v}_{2}}+{{s}_{2}}\text{ ;}

(3)  {S}'=\frac{{{s}_{1}}}{{{v}_{1}}}=\frac{{{s}_{2}}}{{{v}_{2}}}\text{ ;}      (4)  {P}'=\frac{{{s}_{1}}{{p}_{1}}}{{{c}_{1}}+{{v}_{1}}}=\frac{{{s}_{2}}{{p}_{2}}}{{{c}_{2}}+{{v}_{2}}}\text{ ;}

— if we add to them the well-known equations which tie together the rate of profit (P´) with your expressions of return of capital (s1p1, s2p2) and of the price of production (w1p1, w2p2):

{{s}_{1}}{{p}_{1}}=\frac{{{w}_{1}}{{p}_{1}}}{\left( 1+P \right)}{P}'\text{ ;} {{s}_{2}}{{p}_{2}}=\frac{{{w}_{2}}{{p}_{2}}}{\left( 1+P \right)}{P}'\text{ .}

Therefore Hans Peter and Paul Sweezy, following Bortkiewicz, reject Marx’s reasoning. For example Sweezy writes:

“The source of Marx’s error is not difficult to discover. In his price scheme the capitalist’s outlays on constant and variable capital are left exactly as they were in value scheme, in other words, the constant capital and the variable capital used in production are still expressed in value terms. Outputs, on the other hand, are expressed in price terms. Now it is obvious that in a system in which price calculation is universal both the capital used in production and the product itself must be expressed in price terms. The trouble is that Marx went only half way in transforming values into prices”. (The theory of capitalist development, 1942, p. 115).

The right transformation of values into prices according to Bortkiewicz will be as follows.

The equations (1), (2), (3) and, instead of (4),

(4´) 1+{P}'=\frac{{{w}_{1}}{{p}_{1}}}{{{c}_{1}}{{p}_{1}}+{{v}_{1}}{{p}_{2}}}=\frac{{{w}_{2}}{{p}_{2}}}{{{c}_{2}}{{p}_{1}}+{{v}_{2}}{{p}_{2}}}\text{ ;}

besides that:

(5) {{w}_{1}}{{p}_{1}}+{{w}_{2}}{{p}_{2}}={{w}_{1}}+{{w}_{2}}\text{ ,} and

(6) {{w}_{1}}={{c}_{1}}+{{c}_{2}},\text{ }\left( {{w}_{2}}={{v}_{1}}+{{v}_{2}}+{{s}_{1}}+{{s}_{2}} \right)\text{ .}

But in this case also the prices will be equal to values if we add the above mentioned fundamental equality of Marx’s labour theory of value :

(7) \left( {{c}_{1}}{{p}_{1}}+{{v}_{1}}{{p}_{2}} \right)\cdot {P}'+\left( {{c}_{2}}{{p}_{1}}+{{v}_{2}}{{p}_{2}} \right)\cdot {P}'={{s}_{1}}+{{s}_{2}}\text{ .}

Indeed, it follows from (4´), (7) and (3):

\frac{{{w}_{1}}{{p}_{1}}}{{{c}_{1}}{{p}_{1}}+{{v}_{1}}{{p}_{2}}}=\frac{{{w}_{2}}{{p}_{2}}}{{{c}_{2}}{{p}_{1}}+{{v}_{2}}{{p}_{2}}}=\frac{{{v}_{1}}{s}'+{{v}_{2}}{s}'}{{{c}_{1}}{{p}_{1}}+{{v}_{1}}{{p}_{2}}+{{c}_{2}}{{p}_{1}}+{{v}_{2}}{{p}_{2}}}+1\text{ ,}

or

{{w}_{1}}{{p}_{1}}+{{w}_{2}}{{p}_{2}}=\left( {{v}_{1}}+{{v}_{2}} \right){s}'+\left( {{c}_{1}}+{{c}_{2}} \right){{p}_{1}}+\left( {{v}_{1}}+{{v}_{2}} \right){{p}_{2}}\text{ ,}

taking into account (6) and (3) we get

{{w}_{2}}{{p}_{2}}=\frac{{{w}_{2}}}{{s}'+1}\left( {s}'+{{P}_{2}} \right)\text{.}

Hence p2 = 1, and from (5) we get p1 = 1.

The observed variation in organic composition of the advanced capital (c/v; c + v + s = w) is engendered by the various periods of its circulation and by the presence of the differential rent, in accordance with the labour theory of value.

In the econometric literature there are many assertions that an optimal state of economy requires the proportionality of prices of consumer goods to their values, i.e. to the amounts of labour necessary to produce them. The first author to state this idea was the Russian mathematician N. Stolarof. He published in 1902 the pamphlet: “Démonstration analytique de la formule économique: Les degrés finals de l’utilité (des products librément crées) son proportionnel à la valeur du travail” (Kiev, in Russian). Other references are in Eberkard Fells’s article “Some Soviet statistical books of 1957” (Journal of the American statistical association, v. 54, N 285, March, 1959”).

It is to be noted that there are two limitations arising from the assumption accepted in that demonstration.

First, it is impossible to determine the amounts of labour in the commodities the production of which is tied together, for example—the grain and the straw. Only the sum of their prices can be compared with the total amount of labour necessary to produce them. That is the case of the famous example of Böhm-Bawerk about the prices of new and matured wine. The labour on the vineyard is spent to produce the new and the matured wine together. The prices of these kinds of wine are proportional to their marginal utilities.

Secondly, the prices of the commodities satisfying the same needs, for example—coal and petroleum, are not mutually independent. Only the sum of the prices of the petroleum and the coal must be compared with the total amount of labour spent on the production of fuel. Here arises the phenomenon of the differential rent in oil-extracting industry.

The theory I have developed since 1929 (first publication in 1949) does not find any supporters. I think it is essentially in accordance with your ideas. Any comments and criticism will be very valuable for me.

With best wishes,

Sincerely yours [signed, A. A. Konüs] /Konüs A.A./

  1. VII.1966

_____________

Carbon copy of letter from Bronfenbrenner to Konüs
18 August, 1966

August 18, 1966

Dr. A. A. Konüs
Box 1587, Moscow Central P.O.
Moscow, USSR

Dear Dr. Konüs:

It has indeed been a pleasure to hear from you, and to learn the extent to which our respective “modernizations” of the Marxian system overlap. I hesitate even to consider our remaining differences, since you know the Marxian literature so much better than I. On the issue of “what Marx really meant” I tend to assume, in the difficult cases, that he meant different things at different stages of his thinking, and that the important issue is what he should have meant, i.e., how can one make sense most readily from his incomplete literary remains, and how might a younger Marx have made use of modern economics.

I am likewise overwhelmed by your ability to keep up with “bourgeois” economic literature at the “Morishima” level of difficulty, in a foreign language into the bargain. You must be over 70 years of age, a time when 99.9 percent of scholars feel exempted from the labor of learning anything new. (I long for such an exemption already, and I am 20 years younger!)

Since my late father (a bacteriologist) [Jacques Jacob Bronfenbrenner] and I collaborated in translating your seminal index-number article for Econometrica [The Problem of the True Index of the Cost of Living (January 1939)] nearly 30 years ago, perhaps you would enjoy hearing some our family legends:

My father was born in Odessa; my grandfather was a chemist at one of the waterfront flour mills. During the 1905 Revolution, my father and two of his brothers engaged in liaison activity between student revolutionary groups and the Potemkin sailors. During the subsequent reaction, my grandfather was shot. My father managed to escape to Paris after two years in hiding, and one uncle escaped from a ship en route to Siberia. My father became an American citizen shortly before the first World War; my uncle became a French citizen and lives near Paris. My late grandmother, a nurse, remained in Russia. She was head of a Red Army hospital during the doctor shortage of the Civil War. My late aunt, who also remained in Russia, died during the German siege of Leningrad in 1941. A second uncle emigrated to America during the famine years of 1920-21, and died last year.

An unusually wide range of political and economic views were represented by my Russian relatives. My grandmother was a good Stalinist. My uncles, repelled by the Terror, were a-political, but generally hostile to the Soviet Government. My father was a Social Revolutionary (SR) in his youth; later, he became a follower of Kerensky; in this country, he was a Roosevelt Democrat. His economics was “maximalist.” He believed there would be no economic problem in a well-run peaceful society. (All goods people “really” wanted could be free, and produced with relatively few years of compulsory labor service.) I should describe myself as a confused and imperfectly-consistent eclectic—considerably more “bourgeois” than Marxist, in my own view.

My mother was not of Russian descent. The family’s only common language was English. I had no opportunity to study Russian, and speak no Russian whatever. My cousin [Urie Bronfenbrenner, 2005 obituary in the New York Times], on the other hand, grew up in a Russian-speaking household. He speaks the language fluently, and does liaison work between Soviet and American workers in his specialty (psychology). I have often felt some jealousy at this superior opportunities.

Sincerely yours,

Martin Bronfenbrenner
Visiting Fellow

MB:has

 

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Project. Martin Bronfenbrenner Papers, Box 7, Folder “Marxian Distribution Theory, n.d.”.

Categories
Economists Oxford

Oxford. “Another Shot at Welfare Economics,” Two lectures by Hicks, ca. 1954

 

In Harold Hotelling’s papers I came across a typed manuscript for two lectures held by John Hicks on Welfare Economics that can be dated to ca. 1954.    That manuscript is located at Duke University, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archives. Papers of Harold Hotelling, Box 46, Folder “Lectures (2)”.

It turns out the same manuscript was found by Tatsuro Kanai in the Hicks Papers maintained by the Library and Academic Information Centre, Kobe Gakuentoshi Campus at the University of Hyogo. Kanai published transcriptions in the journal History of Economic Thought   of  the Japanese Society for the History of Economic Thought. But for all of us, it can’t hurt to link to the lectures here.

____________________

Tatsuro Kanai [Nagano National College of Technology], J. R. Hicks’ Unpublished Lecture Notes: Another Shot at Welfare Economics, Lecture I, The History of Economic Thought, Vol. 48, Issue 2 (2006) pp. 84-97.

Tatsuro Kanai, J. R. Hicks’ Unpublished Lecture Notes: Another Shot at Welfare Economics, Lecture II, The History of Economic Thought, Vol. 49, Issue 2 (2007), pp. 63-78.

Image Source: From Portrait of John Richard Hicks (1953). National Portrait Gallery.

Categories
Chicago Columbia Economists Yale

Yale. James Tobin on Freedom to Friedman in 1964

 

The last paragraph of this letter from James Tobin to Milton Friedman could have been written yesterday (by someone with a good memory for history). While it is fair to say that Friedman’s team has managed to control the ball longer on the clock over the past half-century, Tobin’s team is better at keeping points on the scoreboard. 

___________________

Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics
Box 2125, Yale Station

December 7, 1964

Professor Milton Friedman
Department of Economics
Columbia University
Fayerweather Hall
New York 27, New York

 

Dear Milton:

As you urged in your letter of November 11, I shall read Federal Bulldozer [Sample review of Martin Anderson’s book]. The only redevelopment I am at all familiar with is the one here in New Haven. I think it has, in some net balance, enlarged freedom. Eminent domain no doubt infringes on one dimension of freedom and is subject to abuse. But there are surely aspects of freedom other than freedom from government coercion.

The discussion would be advanced if you would recognize that some government actions might enlarge the scope for individual choice and action for some individuals by diminishing the environmental constraints upon them.

I think also it is useful to distinguish between expansion of the public sector as a purchaser and user of resources and increases in specific and direct governmental controls and regulations. I don’t think that “modern liberals” who favor the former favor the latter. Certainly I don’t. I would not have a minimum wage law, or a Davis-Bacon Act, or the agricultural mess. And, when I want more money for education, I don’t like to be accused of wanting an NRA [National Recovery Administration]. But this confusion is what happens by the indiscriminate use of the term “Big Government.”

It is on the question of freedom of expression that I find the most difficulty understanding you. My reading of history and of the contemporary scene would be that the main threats to freedom of dissent have almost nothing to do with the economic size of government in our kind of society. The main threats have come from the know-nothings, Mitchell Palmers, McCarthys  [cf. a review of the Anderson book on Joseph McCarthy by Alonzo L. Hamby], Klu Kluxers, and the like. It is not the big Federal government that intimidates librarians, textbook writers, broadcasters, civil rights advocates in the South, etc. I do not know of cases where a democracy has crept into totalitarianism by gradually increasing the size and scope of government activity. But I do know of cases, like the Weimar republic, where the failure of conservative governments to use their powers for social and economic ends has delivered the whole country to a totalitarian dictator.

Sincerely,

[signed: “Jim”]

James Tobin

JT:lah

 

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Milton Friedman Papers. Box 34, Folder 13 “Tobin, James”.

Images Sources:   1962 photo of James Tobin ; 1968 file photo of Milton Friedman.

Categories
Chicago Economic History Economist Market Economists Fields

Chicago. Report of the Bailey-Christ-Griliches Committee, 1957

 

Today’s artifact provides a collection of suggestions from three young faculty members of the University of Chicago department of economics in 1957 regarding (inter alia) thesis writing, linkages with business/law/statistics faculty, long-term staffing, and the creation of a working-papers series. After reading the report, I guess one should not be terribly surprised that all three of these young turks would ultimately end up spending the lion’s share of the rest of their working lives elsewhere than Chicago. Basically what we have below is a young insider’s view of how to proceed in promoting excellence at Chicago, though it does not really have the ring of a majority view of that faculty. For fans of Saturday Night Live, one might say Christ et al. wanted “less cowbell” but the “more cowbell” faction was stronger. [An alternate source for the SNL sketch]

The following report was written by Carl Christ who incorporated assessments by his fellow committee members Martin J. Bailey and Zvi Griliches.  These guys were only ca. 34, 30, and 27 years old, respectively, in 1957. One suspects that the acting chair of the department of economics at the University of Chicago, D. Gale Johnson, was hoping to tap the minds of the younger faculty members for some fresh ideas. Both Friedman and Stigler had already entered mid-life at 45 and 46 years of age, respectively. 

I have added footnotes to the text in square brackets, e.g. [1], where descriptions of the reader’s markings by T. W. Schultz are provided.

_______________________

T. S. Schultz’s handwritten notes attached to Report

I.  Christ-G-B

  1. dust off Master’s (hold)
  2. treatment of the weak
  3. rec[commend?] students with more enthusiasm
  4. more history (underway)
  5. combine workshops?

II. Business –Law-Statistics

O.K.     more cross listing of courses. List of faculties for use in assigning committees (underway)

III. Information

prong 1. Special seminar (tied to more visitors)
prong 2. more 1 & 2 year visitors
prong 3. dist our staff (2 v.G.
prong 4. reprint service (underway)

 

_______________________

copy of T. W. S.

REPORT OF THE BAILEY-CHRIST-GRILICHES COMMITTEE*

            *The committee was appointed by D. Gale Johnson, acting chairman of the Department, pursuant to a motion passed at a department meeting late in the spring quarter of 1957. The report was written by Carl F. Christ, chairman of the committee, and has been approved in substance by Martin J. Bailey and Zvi Griliches, the other two committee members.

 

The committee has met together several times. In addition, each of us has “held hearings” with colleagues on numerous informal occasions. Our original terms of reference centered on a long range view of the question of staffing the department. But in our discussions we have ranged very widely.

We have dealth [sic] with five broad topics, some of which are interconnected. The five are, loosely speaking:

  1. Instruction, training and placement of students.
  2. Relations with the business, law, and statistics faculties.
  3. Information about the department for its members, for the economics profession and for prospective students.
  4. The allocation of resources in economics research.
  5. Kinds of economists the department ought to try to hire.

On some of these topics we have concrete suggestions, on some we have vague suggestions, and on some we merely have questions. This report provides a brief account of our discussions, and in the course of it it the suggestions and questions will appear.

 

(1) Instruction, training and placement of students.

This topic has not been a major one in our discussions. However we have several points under it.

First, the M.A. degree ought to be dusted off and made more respectable and more meaningful to students, so that those who do not choose or are not able to continue for the Ph.D. can go away from here with the feeling that they have made a worthwhile investment, to our credit as well as theirs.

Second, we ought to do a better job with our relatively weak Ph.D. aspirants in two respects: First, in discouraging or prohibiting from Ph.D. work any student who, in our opinion, is not capable of success by our standards. Second, once a student has been permitted to go ahead on his thesis, in encouraging and assisting him so that he is able to finish within a reasonable period of time and to have the feeling that he has been treated fairly. The reason for mentioning this point is that we have come across reports of several students who worked long and hard on theses and went through several revisions, with the result that they felt we had been unreasonably exacting and had unnecessarily delayed their degrees. [1]  If the M.A. degree is made more respectable as suggested above, there should be less difficulty in maintaining our Ph.D. standards and at the same time avoiding long-drawn-out struggles with marginal Ph.D. students. [2]

Third, we ought to be more vigorous and more liberal in recommending our students for jobs. There appears to be some evidence that in making recommendations we typically assume that the prospective employer has standards as high as ours, and so sometimes fail to place some of our people in jobs that instead are filled by less qualified students from elsewhere. [3]

Fourth, we ought to give at least some of our students a better knowledge of history and inability to make use of it in economics. Too many of our students go away with only poor knowledge in this area. At the same time, in Earl Hamilton and John Nef, not to mention others, the department has access to some of the best historical talent that is to be found anywhere. Can it not be turned to the advantage of more students? [4]

Fifth, we ought to economize our resources a bit by combining into one the workshop appearance in the thesis seminar of those students whose workshop performances appear ex post to have served the purpose of the thesis seminar. It might also be possible to combine the Ph.D. oral examination with the seminar appearance in some cases, thus making a further saving.
Sixth, we ought to take more advantage of the resources in the business, law, and statistics faculties, and be prepared to let them do the same with us (see topic 2 below). [5]

 

(2) Relations with the business, law, and statistics faculties.

The committee met for an hour with Allen Wallis, James Lorie, and Arnold Harberger to discuss informally the probable future course of relations between the department and the school. From this it appeared that the school intends to continue to send many of its advanced students to the department for training in price theory and monetary and income theory, and also that the school will welcome students from the department who wish to study topics that are offered in the school. [6] It also appeared that the school intends to invest fairly heavily in staff in the areas of industrial and market organization in the public regulation of business (this interested us because we feel that one of the main weaknesses in the department’s coverage lies here; see topic 5 below). [7]

We discussed the fact that while relations between the department and the school have always been cordial, there has not been as much flow back and forth as desirable, and in particular that some of our students would be interested in the business school’s work fail to follow up this interest because our demands on their time are quite heavy. We concluded that if there were more cross-listing of courses in the catalog and time schedules (the business school now does a better job of this than we do), and if some of their faculty came to our seminars and oral examinations and vice versa, and if there were more preliminary examination committees and thesis committees with members from both the school and the department, then in the course of meeting their degree requirements, any interested economics department students will find it easier to draw on the resources of the business school and vice versa.[8]

A similar approach to law and statistics would appear promising.

 

(3) Information about the department for its members, for the economics profession, and for prospective students.

One of the most commonly recurring themes in our discussions with each other and with “witnesses” in our “hearings” was that we do not provide good enough information for each other and for outsiders about the kind of work that is going on here, and the advantages we believe we have. Our discussions on this point have led to one of the two major suggestions we have to offer (the other appears below in section 5).

The suggestion is to set up a four-pronged program something like the following. (We will quickly list the four prongs, and then return with some comments.) First, set up a sort of special seminar (which might be called the Economics Research Center Seminar) to meet more or less regularly about twice a month, at which the best work that students and faculty and guests are doing would be presented to the department and its guests. Second, have a larger number of one-year or two-year visitors from all over the U. S. and the world, either as post-doctoral fellows or research associates or the like, whose main responsibility here would be to work on their own research and participate in the special seminar, as well as to take part in one or more workshops and research projects. Third, distribute dittoed copies of our essentially finished work to a selected mailing list of economists in the US and abroad, as the Agricultural Economics group already does informally. And fourth, have a reprint series that would carry the best published articles and papers by our faculty, students, and guests.

It is clear that if such a special seminar is set up and no cut is made in the number of meetings of the other workshops and seminars, the faculty workload will increase. Since we feel that it is already pretty high, it seems sensible to suggest that each workshop skip one meeting each month. This should approximately compensate for the extra load created by the special seminar.*

*A crude survey of the faculty attendance at the Agricultural Economics Seminar and the Chile, Labor, Money, Public Finance, and Econometrics Workshops yields the estimate that about 40 faculty-hours (that is, about 20 man-seminars) per week go into these workshops. Assuming that about 10 faculty members would come to each special seminar, about every two weeks, this would require a weekly average of about 10 faculty-hours (or about 5 man-seminars), which would be released if the frequency of meetings of the workshops were reduced about 25%. Another economy measure in this direction is mentioned under topic (2), fifth item.

(In response to the special seminar idea, some colleagues have suggested that the important thing is to circulate advance notice of particularly good work that is about to be presented, so that interested faculty members and others can attend, and that if this can be done, there is no need to have a special seminar; the regular workshop sessions will suffice. If the idea is accepted that particularly good work ought to be publicized within the department before it is presented, then the question of whether to do this via notices of regular workshop meetings or via a special seminar can be discussed as a procedural matter.) [9]

The special seminar idea is tied in with the idea of more visitors, for one of the results we hope for is that the visitors will see our best work, and will spread the word about what kinds of things are being done here, when they leave and go elsewhere. [10]

The reprint series and the distribution of the dittoed manuscripts will, we hope, have a similar effect. Further, but dittoed manuscripts will enable some members of the profession at large to become familiar with our results many months before they can be brought out in published form. [11]

Other simpler measures that might improve the flow of information are the following: Putting out a special department circular or flyer describing the department, the workshops, the interchange of research among faculty and advanced students, and the large amount of faculty attention paid to students; returning to the practice of giving brief descriptions of courses in the catalog (and in the above-mentioned circular), instead of merely course titles as our department has been doing recently; and publishing an annual report for the Economics Research Center. [12]  The matter of job recommendations for our students, which is related to the topic of providing information, was touched on under topic (1) above.

 

(4) The allocation of resources and economics research.

The area of economics that is the most fully developed, the most systematic, the most firmly established, and probably the most reliable for understanding and controlling economic events is the more or less traditional theory of prices, distribution, and the allocation of resources, based on the tools of supply, demand, and marginal analysis. Because it’s postulates (including utility maximization, profit maximization, and a fairly widespread knowledge of market alternatives) appear to be rather unrealistic, this theory has the reputation among many people of being dry, abstract, and of little or no practical value. In the opinion of the committee and of many economists in our department and elsewhere, this theory is a powerful one and can lead to highly useful results when applied to real-world problems. Indeed, one of the most productive kinds of activity for economists appears to be to apply this theory to situations where public and private policies are inappropriate to the goals people have in mind. [13]

In our opinion, the main strength of our department lies in just this kind of activity. We have a group of people who are very devoted to and very good at discovering important, unsolved economic problems that can be solved with the aid of this kind of theory, and solving them. [14]

Our agricultural economists’ approach to the farm problem is one example. Their work on optimum storage rules and on the development of natural resources or others. Our department’s work on economic growth in a sense is another, since when we find that the growth in national product is not fully accounted for by inputs of labor and capital is usually measured, we begin to look for some missing input, either in the form of something that shifts the production function, or in the form of some quality improvements that we have missed in the labor and/or capital: knowledge in either case. This is related to work by Friedman, Becker, in the labor workshop on the value of education as an investment, and to Knight’s concept of human beings as a form of capital. Harberger’s work on depletion allowances, and on the welfare costs of the U.S. tax system, are other examples. Friedman’s and Cagan’s work on the demand and supply of money are examples too, in the sense that attention is focused on the behavior of economic units seeking to maximize their utility or profit in their holding of money and their borrowing and lending operations. Friedman’s and Reid’s consumption work is similar in that into rests on the same view of individual behavior. The whole Chile project is an example par excellence. Friedman’s suggestions for allowing the price system more scope in the fields of education, military recruiting, and the like, for which Friedman and indirectly, the department are so well known, are still others, as is Becker’s free banking scheme, though there is probably more disagreement among economists generally about questions like these that about the other work mentioned above.

While it is clear to us that applications of the familiar theory of allocation of resources very productive, it seems equally clear that the real frontiers of economics lies elsewhere. Some areas that have claimed attention so far are economic history, political science, sociology and social psychology and cultural anthropology, psychology (including learning theory), information theory, statistical decision theory, linear programming, the theory of games. It seems at least as likely that major advances in economics will come by one of these routes or some as-yet-unidentified route as they will come from applications of the familiar resource-allocation theory.

The foregoing statement is so broad that it is almost certain to be true, and almost useless as a guide to research workers interested in major advances. The committee polled itself as to where it thinks pay dirt lies, and where it does not lie, with results something like the following: Among the areas particularly likely to be fruitful are the borderland with learning theory and psychology concerning choice and decision-making  [15], the borderland with statistics concerning decision theory and game theory [16], the borderland with anthropology concerning culture and values [17], the borderland with political science concerning political institutions [18]. Also promising, we feel, are mathematical approaches generally, including mathematical approaches to some of the above mentioned borderlands. [19] None of us wanted to rule out linear programming, though none of us was enthusiastic about input-output.

In summary of this topic, we have two statements: First, the familiar resource allocation theory is a powerful tool and there remains a rich field for its application. Second, it seems to us that if some resources are invested in related but different areas such as those mentioned in the preceding paragraph, there is now a worthwhile chance of that substantial pay-off in the form of new knowledge relevant to economics.

 

(5) Kinds of economists the department ought to try to hire.

Over the past few years several members of the department (and a good many outsiders!) have expressed the view that our department is too homogeneous in several ways. [20] Most of us rely heavily on resource allocation theory, as suggested in the preceding section of this report, and do not emphasize peripheral and possibly frontier areas such as decision theory, learning theory, information theory, psychology, anthropology, and the like. [21] Most of us were trained at Chicago at some stage, are essentially anti-socialist, [22] have essentially similar views about monetary and fiscal policy, have similar views about how far public policy should rely on the price mechanism and how far it should interfere with it, and are primarily theoretically and analytically oriented as opposed to institutionally oriented.

In recent department meetings, our discussion of this matter has often gone something like this: First, we more or less agree that we ought to diversify by seeking a socialist, or an institutionalist, or something of the sort. [23]  Then we considered names of economists who might qualify, and one by one we reject them on the ground that they are not really good economists. The discussion ends when someone says, “There’s really nobody good in that category.”

Granted that we want to maintain a high level of quality in the department, there are at least two difficulties involved in any attempt to diversify. One is that in hiring people we like to feel that we know them pretty well, so as to make informed decisions. And the younger people whom we know the best, by and large, are our own former students and fellow-students. This creates and perpetuates a bias in favor of people trained at Chicago. [24] The bias is not so strong, of course, in the cases of people who have published and made reputations, but even here it appears to exist (look at the people who were brought here as associate professor from elsewhere, and ask how many have had training at Chicago).

A second difficulty is simply that it is hard to separate judgment about the quality of an economist from judgment about his position on questions of research strategy and of economic policy. We agree in principle that high quality is very important, and also that it is possible for powerful and prolific minds to disagree in good faith concerning research strategy and public policy. Still there is a temptation to feel that one’s own views sincerely arrived at are best, and that somehow an economist who disagrees strongly with them cannot really be a very good economist. [25]

It seems to the committee that the real issue is not diversification per se. We see the issue somewhat as follows: As we said in the foregoing section of the report, we believe that the real frontiers of economics lie in directions that are somewhat unorthodox by the lights of the department. [26] We also believe that there are high-quality economists who are unorthodox in the same sense. If these two premises are correct, then our interest as a department in pushing forward the frontiers of economics must prompt us to make a serious attempt to add a few such people to our staff. It is only in this sense the diversification seems to be a worthwhile aim.  [27]

The question of what sort of people the department ought to try to hire includes not only the problem of finding economists of high quality who appeared to have productive unorthodox approaches. [28] It also includes the problem of rounding out the subject-matter coverage of the department.

The committee pulled itself again, this time as to the subject matter areas that the department ought to pay special attention to, in seeking new faculty. The results were as follows.

For replacement of staff lost in recent years, the two high-ranking fields were mathematical economics-econometrics, and industrial and market organization in social control of business. [29]  (The second of these seems less urgent for us, in the light of the business school’s intention to invest in it; see topic 2 above.) Ranking almost as high was the history of economic thought. [30]

For expansion, we thought of business fluctuations, the economics of the firm, and American economic history (the latter mainly so as to free Earl Hamilton to give work in his real specialty, European economic history, without sacrificing our offering in the American field).

The last two sections of the report may be summarized thus (and here is the second major suggestion referred to earlier). It is the feeling of the committee (1) that we should place a high value on quality, and (2) that in view of our belief that the present composition of the department is weak in areas where the frontiers of economics are to be found, we should make a serious attempt to find high quality people whose interests and competence give promise of advancing the frontier, as suggested in the end of the preceding section of the report. We also suggest that the department pay special attention to the fields mentioned in the foregoing paragraph. In particular, we suggest that the department undertake to appoint a person in the mathematical economics-econometrics area beginning in the fall of 1958. [31]

There is no reason why one or more of these things should not be combined in the same person. And, of course, there is no reason why we should pass up opportunities to hire good economists who are essentially orthodox by our lights, if our resources will permit us to do that as well as meet our author needs.

 

Handwritten Markings and Remarks

[1] Vertical line in left margin marks the last two sentences of paragraph.

[2] Question mark in left margin for this sentence.

[3] “a good point” in left margin for second sentence of paragraph.  “need to ask[?] terms of the specific job + not general letters” in the right margin

[4] “good” in left margin. Vertical line in left-hand margin marks the entire paragraph.

[5] “OK” in left margin. Vertical line in left-hand margin marks the entire paragraph.

[6] “good” written in left margin next to this sentence.

[7] Vertical line in left margin marks the last sentence of the paragraph.

[8] “get list from these committees” in left margin for this sentence.

[9] “OK” in left margin for the last sentence of this paragraph.

[10] “OK” in left margin next to this paragraph.

[11] “OK” in left margin for the last sentence of this paragraph.

[12] underlined “merely course titles as our department has” and “publishing an annual report for the Economics”

[13] Four vertical lines in the left margin mark the last sentence of this paragraph.

[14] Vertical line in the left margin marks the entire paragraph.

[15]  Underlined: “borderland with learning theory and psychology concerning choice and decision-making”,  “(1)” in left margin.

[16] Underlined: “statistics concerning decision theory and game theory”,  “(2)” in left margin.

[17] Underlined: “anthropology concerning culture and values”,  “(3)” in left margin.

[18] Underlined: “political science concerning political institutions”,  “(4)” in left margin.

[19] “(5)” with a vertical line in the left margin marking “mathematical approaches generally, including mathematical approaches to some of the above mentioned borderlands.”

[20] “is too homogeneous in several ways” is underlined.

[21]  “decision theory, learning theory, information theory, psychology, anthropology” is underlined.

[22] “anti-socialist” is circled

[23] “socialist” and “institutionalist” are each circled.

[24] Vertical line in left margin marking the second, third, and fourth sentences of this paragraph.

[25] Vertical line in left margin marking this entire paragraph.

[26] “economics lie in directions that are somewhat unorthodox” is underlined.

[27]  Vertical line in left margin marking the last two sentences of this paragraph.

[28] “productive unorthodox approaches” is circled

[29] “mathematical economics-econometrics” is circled  “also Stigler” written in left hand margin with reference to “industrial and market organization”

[30] “history of economic thought” is underlined, connected with short line to bottom margin note “Stigler”.

[31] Curly vertical line in the left margin marks the entire paragraph.

 

Source: University of Chicago Archives. Department of Economics Records, Box 42, Folder 8.
Mimeograph copy without marginal notes also found in Harvard University Archives. Papers of Zvi Griliches, Box 129, Folder “Correspondence, 1954-1959”.

Image Source: Professor Carl F. Christ in Johns Hopkins University yearbook. Hullabaloo 1962.

 

Categories
Chicago Economists Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins. Memories of Chicago Economics Ph.D. Alumnus and JHU professor Carl Christ, 2017

 

Sometime in the second half of the 1980’s, when my stock as an expert on the economy of the German Democratic Republic was reasonably high and the future fall of the Berlin Wall was still sufficiently somewhere over the rainbow, the President of the Johns Hopkins University (Stephen Mueller) apparently hoped enough to attract me to the young American Institute for Contemporary German Studies of Johns Hopkins in some capacity to have the economics department of the university invite me to present a seminar and talk with colleagues there. Knowing now just how excited departments can be about suggestions coming from the university administration regarding potential appointments, I should have gone into this campus visit with low expectations. 

As it turned out my host for the visit was the senior professor Carl Christ who was the proverbial gentleman and a scholar. He was an engaging and sympathetic mensch with broad interests. From that time I have read with delight his accounts of the Chicago years of the Cowles Commission. He struck me as a scholar you could trust.  I was introduced to his colleague Peter Newman who, if memory serves me correctly,  joined us for lunch. Come to think of it, for my latent interest in the history of economics, I could have hardly had a much better day.

However the story of my day with the Johns Hopkins department of economics would be incomplete without admitting that the seminar did not go well…for me. It was the first time in my (hitherto sheltered) academic life that I was mawled by a pit-bull seminarian over a point that was quite important for his c.v. but of third-order importance for the results of my paper. In any event, there was no further contact one way or another with the Johns Hopkins economics department after that.

My positive impressions of Carl Christ survived and I am delighted to share what I have found out about the life and career of the this fine specimen of  a 1950 University of Chicago economics Ph.D. Note:  “Although his economic training was in the ‘Chicago School,’ he never believed that economic efficiency was a higher goal than social justice,” wrote a daughter, Alice Christ of Lexington, Ky.”

The previous post provides his reading lists for a sequence of econometrics courses he taught at the University of Chicago in 1957.

___________________

Obituary
May 3, 2017

Longtime JHU Economist Carl Christ dies at 93

Carl Christ, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Economics at Johns Hopkins University, passed away on April 21, 2017. Professor Christ was born on September 19, 1923 in Chicago and graduated from the University of Chicago Lab School. He earned his BS in Physics from the University in Chicago in 1943 and his Ph.D. in Economics from the same institution in 1950. He worked as a Junior Physicist on the Manhattan Project in Chicago from 1943 to 1945 and was an Instructor in Physics at Princeton University from 1945 to 1946, after which he enrolled in the graduate program in the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago. He was a Research Associate at the Cowles Commission at Chicago from 1949-1950. He moved to the Department of Economics at Johns Hopkins in 1950, where he served on the faculty until 1955, when he moved back to the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago, where he served as Associate Professor from 1955 to 1961. In 1961, he returned to Johns Hopkins as Professor, where he remained until he retired in 2005 and assumed Emeritus status.

Carl Christ had a distinguished record of scholarship across multiple topics. His interests ranged from econometric methods, especially the testing and evaluation of econometric models, to monetary and fiscal policy and to the history of econometrics. His work on macroeconometric models was rooted in the Cowles Commission tradition of structural econometric models based solidly on economic theory and careful attention to identification, endogeneity, and consistent and efficient estimation. He wrote a seminal paper on the forecast error variances from those types of models and on their sensitivity to model specification. He authored a widely used introductory econometrics textbook in 1966, Econometric Models and Methods, which popularized the structural econometric approach. The textbook was translated into several languages. In the area of monetary and fiscal policy, his major contribution was a deep incorporation of the federal budget constraint in all its dimensions–fiscal, monetary, reserves, debt, and so on–into macroeconometric models, which had inadequately incorporated those features prior to his work. He showed that policy multipliers were very different when the budget constraint was properly modeled. His interest in the history of econometric methods was also strong, and he wrote a history of the Cowles Commission during its first 20 years which was published in 1952, an expanded version of which appeared in the Journal of Economic Literature in 1994, and he wrote a history of the founding of the Econometric Society as well as several other pieces on the history of quantitative analysis. He was a student and admirer of Tjalling Koopmans and, with Martin Beckmann and Marc Nerlove, edited the Scientific Papers of Koopmans. A symposium in his honor where papers relating to his research were presented was held at Johns Hopkins in 1995 and was published in the Journal of Econometrics in 1998.

Christ served in numerous professional and department capacities during his career. He served in multiple capacities of the American Economic Association, including serving as Vice President, serving on its Executive Committee, chairing several other committees, and serving on the Editorial Board of the American Economic Review. He served in numerous roles for the National Bureau of Economic Research, including service as a Member, Vice Chair, and Chair of its Board of Directors. He served on the Council of the Econometric Society and in several other capacities for the Society. He was an elected Fellow of the Econometric Society and the American Statistical Association and received many other citations and awards. At Johns Hopkins, he served as Chair of the Economics Department twice, from 1961 to 1966 and from 1969 to 1970. He also served on numerous university committees throughout his career and into his time as Emeritus Professor. The Department of Economics at Johns Hopkins has a named professorship as well as a named graduate student fellowship in his honor.

He is survived by his wife of 66 years, the former Phyllis Tatsch.

 

Source:   Johns Hopkins University Department of Economics Website. “Longtime JHU Economist Carl Christ dies at 93”.

___________________

IN MEMORIAM
Published Apr 25, 2017

Longtime Johns Hopkins economist Carl F. Christ dies at 93
Trailblazing expert in field of econometrics specialized in fiscal policy and government budget restraint, spent more than 40 years at JHU

by Jill Rosen

 

Carl F. Christ, a distinguished economist whose career at Johns Hopkins University stretched more than 40 years, including two stints leading his department, died Friday. He was 93.

Christ was a trail-blazer in the field of econometrics, where statistical analysis puts economic theories to the test. In the late 1960s he wrote one of the first textbooks on the subject, a book that became a standard text used for decades in economics courses worldwide. Much later, in 1998, the Journal of Econometrics honored him with a special issue, a collection of articles by “friends, colleagues, and professional admirers of his life’s work,” that praised his contributions, his influence, and the “beauty” of his analytical work.

Christ, born in Chicago, graduated in 1943 from the University of Chicago, where his father was on the faculty of the business school. He did not initially pursue economics, but physics, teaching it at Princeton and working on the Manhattan Project, a research effort during World War II that led to the creation of nuclear weapons.

But Christ realized he wanted to use his mathematics ability to help the world in a different, more peaceful way. He once told the News-Letter, “During World War II, I lived in a house full of pacifists while I was working on the atom bomb. I then wanted to do something that had to do with human problems.”

“He wanted to do more good in the world,” said his daughter, Lucy Smith. “He wanted to be constructive and he saw economics as the path to do that.”

After returning to school and earning a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago, Christ joined the faculty of Johns Hopkins in 1950, where he stayed for most of the rest of his career, except for a six-year stint at the University of Chicago.

In addition to pioneering the use of computers to test econometric models, Christ’s niche was monetary and fiscal policy, especially government budget restraint. He is the author of four books, editor of one, and has more than 40 articles in journals and books, as well as more than 60 other publications.

“He was one of the greatest macro econometricians of the 1950s and 1960s,” said Johns Hopkins economist Robert Moffitt. “He worked on the first wave of econometrically-based macroeconomic models of the economy developed at the Cowles Foundation at the University of Chicago, and became a leading authority in the economics profession on their estimation.”

Students at Johns Hopkins chose him to win the George E. Owen Teaching Award in 1985, an award for outstanding teaching and devotion to undergraduates.

In 2008, when the university established a named professorship in his honor—the Center for Financial Economics’ Carl Christ Professorship—his colleagues described it as an honor for “the legacy of a man who has been an inspirational teacher and mentor to generations of Johns Hopkins students.”

Johns Hopkins economics professor emeritus Louis Maccini, who Christ hired, said Christ always had time for junior colleagues and students, ready with constructive criticism and good advice.

“When he hired me he was a very distinguished scholar, and I appreciated how I could talk with him and get sensible advice—passed on as if I was his equal,” Maccini said. “I tried to model myself after him in that regard.”

Beverly Wendland, dean of JHU’s Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, also recalled Christ’s dedication to the university.

“A renowned economist who was beloved by both his students and faculty colleagues, Carl was instrumental in making our Department of Economics the standard-bearer that it is today,” she said.” He will be remembered, not only for his pioneering work in econometrics, but for his love and dedication toward Johns Hopkins.”

Christ was passionate about the university community, joining numerous efforts and boards, and even appearing in a few Johns Hopkins theatrical productions. He was a devoted member of “The Oldtimers,” an informal club for retired faculty and staff.

“He held the thing together,” said Matt Crenson, a Johns Hopkins political scientist and an Oldtimer. “He planned meetings, he made reservations, he discussed the menu, and he sent out notices—I hope we’ll be able to survive without him.”

Off-campus, Christ served on the Maryland Governor’s Council of Economic Advisers and helped the Urban League by drafting brochures on financial topics, like how to buy a house with sustainable mortgage payments.

At Roland Park Place, where he lived, Christ joined the investment advisory committee and the hospitality committee. He could also be regularly spotted at the corner of 41st Street, with a “War is not the answer” sign.

In addition to his daughter Lucy, Christ is survived by his wife of 66 years, Phyllis; daughters Alice Christ and Joan Christ; and five grandchildren.

 

Source: Johns Hopkins University, Hub website.

___________________

Obituary
April 26, 2017

Carl F. Christ, noted Johns Hopkins economist
by Frederick N. Rasmussen
The Baltimore Sun

Carl F. Christ, a noted Johns Hopkins University economist whose career spanned more than four decades and who during World War II worked on the Manhattan Project, died Friday of complications from prostate cancer at Roland Park Place.

He was 93.

“Carl Christ was one of the leading figures in the world on macroeconomics and econometrics, and was clearly one of the most distinguished senior faculty members at the time,” said Louis J. Maccini, who retired from Johns Hopkins in 2013, where he had served as chair of the economics department from 1992 to 2007.

“We have been colleagues and friends for almost 50 years, and it was Carl who hired me at Hopkins in 1969,” he said.

“An important ingredient about Carl was that he was a very constructive person, and his comments and opinions were always constructively offered to students and colleagues,” he said. “When I came to Hopkins, he treated me equally as a colleague, and I appreciated that. It was a key element of his personality that he was always helpful and constructive.”

The son of Jay Finley Christ, a professor in the business school of the University of Chicago, and Maud Trego Christ, an educator and suffragette, Carl Finley Christ was born and raised in Chicago and was a graduate of the University of Chicago Laboratories School, a high school. He attended Colorado College for two years.

He was a 1943 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Chicago, where he earned a degree in physics.

From 1943 to 1945, he worked as a junior physicist for the Manhattan Project, which led to the development of the atomic bomb.

After his wartime work with the Manhattan Project, Dr. Christ decided to use his mathematics acumen to achieve peaceful ends.

“During World War II, I lived in a house of pacifists while I was working on the atom bomb. I wanted to do something that had to do with human problems,” he once told the Johns Hopkins News-Letter.

After serving as an instructor in physics at Princeton University from 1945 to 1946, he returned to the University of Chicago, where he earned a Ph.D. in economics.

“Although his economic training was in the ‘Chicago School,’ he never believed that economic efficiency was a higher goal than social justice,” wrote a daughter, Alice Christ of Lexington, Ky.

He joined the Hopkins faculty in 1950 as an assistant professor and in 1953 was named assistant professor of political economy.

Dr. Christ was a senior Fulbright research scholar at the University of Cambridge from 1954 to 1955.

Dr. Christ left Homewood in 1955 when he became an associate professor of economics at the University of Chicago, where he taught until 1961. He then returned to Hopkins as professor of political economy.

He was department chair from 1961 to 1966, and again from 1969 to 1970, and in 1977 was appointed to the Abram G. Hutzler professorship in political economy.

“Dr. Christ was a trailblazer in the field of econometrics, where statistical analysis puts economic theories to the test. In the late 1960s, he wrote one of the first textbooks on the subject, a book that became a standard text used for decades in economics courses worldwide,” according to a Johns Hopkins news release announcing his death.

The book, “Econometric Models and Methods,” was published in 1966. He was a contributor to the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Volume IV, which was published in 1968; “Simultaneous Equations Estimation,” 1994; and “Econometrics, Macroeconomics and Economic Policy” in 1996.

In 1998, the Journal of Econometrics honored Dr. Christ with a special issue that contained articles from “friends, colleagues and professional admirers of his life’s work,” and recognized him for the “beauty” of his work.

Dr. Christ also pioneered the use of computers to test econometric models. His field of specialties included monetary and fiscal policy, especially government budget restraint.

“He is particularly interested in what is known as the government budget restraint, which involves the three ways the government can raise funds when it spends money — taxing, borrowing or printing more money,” reported The Baltimore Sun in a 1981 article.

“Dr. Christ conceded that it is impossible to develop an economic theory that describes human behavior as well as scientific theory can describe the behavior of molecules,” according to the article.

In addition to his four books, he wrote more than 40 articles in journals and books, as well as in more than 60 other publications, including The Sun, regarding economic matters.

Dr. Christ was the recipient in 1985 of the George E. Owen Teaching Award, presented by Hopkins students for outstanding teaching and devotion to undergraduates.

His courses on macro- and microeconomics, government financial policy and the stock market were popular among students at the Homewood campus.

In 2008, Hopkins established a professorship in his honor at the Center for Financial Economics.

Dr. Christ began a phased-in retirement in 1989 and fully retired in 2009.

“According to department secretary Donna Altoff, he continued to show an exceptional level of interest in the students, and loved to talk to them and took interest in their job searches until the end,” wrote another daughter, Lucy Christ Smith of Seattle, in an email.

He and his wife of 66 years, the former Phyllis Tatsch, were former residents of Juniper Road in Guilford and moved to Roland Park Place in 2006. He remained active on many university committees and boards and even performed in several theatrical productions at Johns Hopkins and the Hamilton Street Club.

He was an active member of The Oldtimers, an informal club for retired Hopkins faculty and staff, where he planned meetings, discussed menus and sent out notices to the membership.

Dr. Christ served as a member of the Maryland Governor’s Council of Economic Advisers and helped the Urban League by drafting brochures in financial topics with such articles as how to purchase a house with affordable mortgage payments.

At Roland Park Place, he served as a member of the investment advisory and hospitality committees.

He also regularly participated in a weekly protest staged by residents along 40th Street in front of Roland Park Place, where he could be spotted carrying a sign that read “War is not the answer.”

He and his wife were avid catamaran sailors and windsurfers, and since 1933, he had spent summers on Lake Michigan at Williams Grove and Harbert Woods.

Dr. Christ donated his body to the Maryland Anatomy Board, and plans for a memorial service are incomplete.

In addition to his wife and two daughters, he is survived by another daughter, Joan Christ of Seattle; and five grandchildren.

 

Source: The Baltimore Sun, April 26, 2017.

 

___________________

 In Memoriam—Carl Christ (1923-2017)
Comments from Carl Christ’s students, friends and colleagues

From the Department of Economics, Johns Hopkins University webpage:
http://econ.jhu.edu/in-memoriam-carl-christ-1923-2017/

“Carl was a great teacher and mentor. I was delighted that i managed to catch up with him for lunch on my last visit to the US. He had a most significant impact on me and I am sure on so many others. He was what made Hopkins.”

—John Hewson

 

“I was a student of Carl’s in the 1960s. It was an interesting time. Re econometrics, it was a time when it was becoming a more common tool for economists. Carl had just finished his book and was using it in class. I remember complaining about the high word-to equation ratio relative to competing books (by Johnson and by Goldberger). His story was that his book was especially for grown-up economists who needed to learn econometrics on their own and needed more examples and explanations. So it was a book more than a text book.

Three things I still remember that are still important:

  1. He was an early nag about identification- something that faded for a while in the profession, but has come back with a vengeance.
  2. He used to preach that an econometric paper must not only tell the truth and nothing but the truth, but also the whole truth-more appropriate than ever now, in a world of easy data mining.
  3. I recall him once working on a draft of a survey paper on econometrics, and his secretary (there were secretaries then) misread “econometrics” in the title and typed “economic tricks.” He thought maybe that was a better title.

He was both a great scholar and a true gentleman. It is good that he lived so long.”

—Robert Van Order , George Washington University

 

“He was a kind and generous man and as residual claimant served as my thesis adviser for which I am eternally grateful. He may well have been the third or fourth member of the Department to be so engaged.”

—Stuart I. Greenbaum, Prof. Emeritus , Olin Business School, Washington U. STL

 

“Carl was my teacher in the early seventies. I still remember his course vividly. When he started his econometrics course with chapter (7?) on identification stating that the early chapters were background. He also insisted on giving us back his per-book royalty as we all had bought his book.

More recently, Carl invited me to write a piece on Bela Balassa for the New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics which I accepted with pleasure. Even though he did most of the work, he insisted that my name appear first…..

Carl was a great mentor and the life at Hopkins.

When we organized a service for Bela at the Bank, Carl spoke of Bela with great emotion, breaking up in tears when he told us that Bela took the train back to DC to help his daughter with her homework only to come back to Homewood the next morning.”

—Jaime de Melo

 

“Here is another anecdote: when I took Carl’s class in 1992 his book was out of print and Greene (2nd edition!) was the official textbook. However, he lent us copies of his book. He had photocopies for the male students and the original textbook for our female classmates (the rationale was that the hard-copy was lighter to carry than the photocopies).

Like Jim and Bob, I also remember his emphasis on identification and on the economic interpretation of the results. He was a great scholar, teacher, and a true Gentleman.”

—Ugo Panizza

 

“Dr. Christ was my econometrics teacher and Dissertation Advisor in the mid /late 70s. He was amazing. Pieces I remember fondly are

  • His penchant for using every inch and corner of the board before erasing anything… (and side-bets among students about when he’d actually have to bring out the eraser)
  • Carl and Phyllis attending the periodic grad-Department-wide crab outings to Bo Brooks that I organized — with very messy Bay Seasoning-coated hands around red beer cups
  • His being a real person
  • His dedication to swimming / exercise
  • His desire to have people really understand what he was talking about — and instilling in me a real wish to be useful — something that has been a focus ever since.
  • He was my favorite teacher, and a real role model. It was wonderful to know him, and he’ll be missed.

And I use that story about “economic tricks” all the time before speeches I give (:-)).”

—Lisa A. Skumatz, Ph.D Principal , Skumatz Economic Research Associates (SERA)

 

“Many thanks for sending out this very sad notice of the passing of Professor Christ. I had not heard of his passing even though I live in the DC area. He was my econometrics professor at JHU and, although I showed no talent in econometrics, I enjoyed his class very much. He was so enthusiastic in class, and out of class as well. It was really special to see him at the retirement party for Lou Maccini a few years ago.

Professor Christ was a true scholar, and the personification of a great teacher. A truly classy person who, along with several other Hopkins professors, should have received Nobel prizes. I know he will be missed at Hopkins and by many of his former students like me.

Please convey my sincere regrets to his wife.”

—Eileen Mauskopf

 

“I join all of you in expressing my deep gratitude to Carl and in celebrating his life and work. Carl was my professor and thesis advisor (with Bela). I owe them both greatly.

Let me share an anecdote and a comment.

Anecdote. In the late 1960s early 1970s I was an undergrad student of Econ at the Univ of Buenos Aires in Argentina. There was a bookstore in downtown BsAs specialized in imported books on economics, politics, and similar topics… I liked to go there and just look at the books (as a student, my income was limited). One day I was drawn to a green book on econometrics; I felt I had to buy it even though a) it was expensive; b) my econometrics was poor; and c) my English was even poorer to non-existent. Furthermore, I had not heard of the author and I was not planning on leaving my country to study abroad. Still, I bought the book and I carried it with me to the different countries in Latin America and the Caribbean where I lived and worked when I left my country in 1976.

Fast forward several years, and the mystery of why I bought the book was finally revealed: I went to study at JHU, first at SAIS, and then at the Dep of Economics, where, you guessed it, I was the only one in my class with a personal copy of Carl’s famous book. Carl had a good laugh when I told him the story about my (his) book.

Comment. Other colleagues mentioned Carl’s work on identification. I’d like to highlight a related issue: his paper on Pitfalls in Macroeconomic Model Building along with the paper on government budget constraints were two of the most useful applied macroeconomics papers I have ever read. Once I heard someone say that “macroeconomics is national accounting identities plus opinions.” Everybody is entitled to her/his own opinions (on expectations, behavioral issues, market clearing mechanisms, and so on) but Carl made clear that you are not entitled to your own accounting identities, nor can you ignore them. Many policy disasters in developing countries (and some developed ones) happen because policy makers ignore basic double-accounting identities Carl so rightly emphasized (along with the proper matching of independent equations and the number of endogenous variables in a well-specified macro model).

It was a privilege knowing Carl. My thoughts and prayers go out to him, his family, and friends.”

—Eugenio Díaz-Bonilla

 

“Carl Christ’s greatest legacy was far more than celebrated author of “Econometric Models and Methods” – a 10 year undertaking. And far more than several dozen first rate Journal articles. Even more than a first rate teacher willing to tackle undergrad economics courses. It was his very demanding role as a Thesis Advisor par excellence that I consider his greatest Legacy. Demanding his students work to highest standards of scholarship. No matter how long it took. Always willing to read draft after draft with carefully made comments. Carl Christ was a demanding task master. But he was a superb Thesis Advisor and readily accessible. Under his indefatigable energies those of us privileged to be his Thesis students learned the standards of scholarship. It was the greatest of privileges to be his student. His reputation as a sterling Thesis Advisor went well beyond the Hopkins community.”

—Peter I Berman , (1963-67)

 

“I had the honor and privilege to have been Professor Christ’s grad student and TA for the Macroeconomics and Senior Honors Essay. Aside from his outstanding scholarship, I was lucky enough to observe a fantastic and dedicated teacher at work and a wonderful person and humanitarian to boot. Many of us tried and in vain to emulate this role model. When we heard the sad news, some of us were reminiscing about our experiences with Professor Christ.

Not sure how many know this, but beyond the academics, Professor Christ was also an athlete. I recall a sweet and funny anecdote when Kali Rath, Rafael Tenorio and I were teaching at University of Notre Dame in Indiana in the 90’s, and Gabriella Bucci at Depaul University. We received a call from Carl and Phyllis inviting us with our spouses to his summer house at the lake in New Buffalo, Michigan. We arrived at their home and proceeded to walk to the lake, where he wanted to teach us wind surfing. While walking to lake, we were all chatting with Carl and Phyllis when Kali noticed that Carl was casually holding two buckets containing equipment and other stuff for the sailboat etc.. so he insisted that he should help carry at least one. Carl asked “are you sure?” Kali assured him, and so Carl let go of one of the buckets and kept walking to the lake with the rest of us in tow. Suddenly, I realized that Kali was lingering way behind. I went back to ask him the matter and Kali said “Why don’t you try to lift the bucket” I tried and barely managed lift it before dropping it!! It took two of us to lift it and carry it to the lake panting and all, while marveling at how Carl managed to carry two of them and still lead the troops all the way to the lake while carrying on casual conversation with all of us. We had a wonderful day there.

As many others alumni already mentioned, he epitomized what Hopkins is.

He is and will be sorely missed. Deepest sympathies to Phyllis and family and the larger Hopkins one.”

—Ralph Chami , Assistant Director Institute for Capacity Development International Monetary Fund

 

“Dear friends and colleagues,

Carl Christ was a major reason I came to Hopkins. My undergraduate adviser knew his work and my budding interest in econometrics, and recommended that I apply to Hopkins. Little did I know that behind the book-writer was such a remarkable teacher, scholar, and person.

As a teacher, he was instrumental in helping me really understand identification, a concept I had only loosely grasped as an undergrad. His course built a foundation in econometrics that has served a whole generation of Hopkins students well to this day. More broadly than that, his approach to every question or idea in seminars or conversations was couched in terms that students could appreciate.

The depth of his involvement in his field of research was clear. Among other things, he would talk about the inner workings of the various macroeconometric models of the day. With his characteristic smile and a twinkle in his eye, he would relate that the publicized estimates from those models could sometimes be the technical estimate from the model –with a little final “from the gut” adjustment by the lead economist. Not trying to indict anyone, he was rather intending to both give us some insight to the complicated interaction of modeling limitations, the intuition of experienced economists, and policy influence, as well as get us thinking about what really constituted good research practices.

On the personal side, one of my early memories of the graciousness of Carl and Phyllis was the party they held for first-years in the fall of 1976, on election night for Ford vs Carter. Besides it being a wonderful social mixer, they held a little contest for who could pick the winner and his percentage of the popular vote. As I recall, the winner was the wife of one of our non-US classmates – politics has always been a universal language …

It was terrific to see Carl and Phyllis at Lou’s retirement event. While we hadn’t seen each other in a very long time, his memory was keen as always. He quickly recalled not only my first post-Hopkins job but also some of our DOPE softball days! Those are fond final memories.

My heartfelt condolences go to Phyllis and all of their family and friends.

Best regards,

—Richard J. Willke, Ph.D. , Chief Science Officer International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research

 

“And, yet several more anecdotes.

I remember Carl – we called him Dr. Christ, back then. I was a grad student in the latter part of the 1970s; macroeconomics and international finance were my declared fields.

I remember Carl most vividly for his skillful and intuitive application of mathematical modeling to the greater understanding of macroeconomic theory and policy.

One of my fondest memories of him, was observing how he sat during our general seminars. I remember chuckling to myself, as I watched him, sitting in his chair, his legs folded up underneath him, in the shape of a pretzel. I always marveled at his ability to do that. ?Like the other professors in the department, he was dedicated to his students, the Department, the University, and his profession.

Certainly, one of the great ones!

He will be missed!

My condolences to his wife and family.”

—Milt Pappas, Ph.D.

 

“Carl Christ was an inspiration to me. He was a brilliant economist and very approachable. As a student, I remember that any of the students would walk past his office and he would call out a welcoming greeting to us. My first teaching experience was as a TA for him and I learned a lot from him. I am still a Professor!

Carl, rest in peace and send your blessings to us here on earth.”

—Marianne McGarry Wolf, Ph.D. , Wine and Viticulture Department, California Polytechnic State University

 

” I have just learnt about the sad demise of my most respected Professor Carl Christ. He is the one who offered me the admission with Fellowship to the Graduate Program in Economics at JHU in 1966, was my Ph.D. dissertation major guide along with late Prof Niehans); wrote a rather strong recommendation to my first post Ph.D. employer, IIM Ahmedabad (India), where I served 1970 through until my retirement in 2010; gave a strong recommendation to the Illinois State University, where I served as a full time visiting professor for five semesters at different times during 1982-1990; among several other critical helps. More than these, he was the one who taught me how to conduct research, how to develop econometric models, and how to even draft the thesis in good and correct English language (he corrected the language of the entire first chapter of my thesis and asked me to correct the rest in the same ways). As he was away in England as a Visiting Professor during 1966-67, I missed having had any full course under him, though a lot of my learning in Macroeconomics and Econometrics is due to him. He encouraged me whenever I was upset during my thesis work, helped me even when I had personal difficulties, and arranged my thesis defense shortly after the Commencement as I was keen to return back to India to attend my sister’s wedding. On personal level, he invited me with his family to his house and blessed my wife and both daughters! Such a teacher and guide, rare to find, had been a great boon to me and my accomplishments. Prof Christ, Prof Niehans and Prof Edwin Mills, all at JHU, were great Professors to me! All of them were/are great economists and I have always felt great pride through them.

It has been my great fortune and privilege to be a student of Prof Carl Christ. I offer my humble prayers to the Almighty GOD to grant peace to the departed soul, and courage and strength to the bereaved family to bear this loss. Prof Christ will always remain in my heart and mind through my life. ”

—Girdharilal Saduram Gupta

 

“Carl Christ was an inspiring teacher. I was fortunate to be his research assistant (or one of them) on his econometrics text and in fact am cited in the acknowledgements in the book. It was a great honor to work with him.”

“Good memories of a fine man, Bob (Robert Van Order). I was on campus 1963-65 when he was doing his book (then went off to South Korea and finished the dissertation later on the work there). I do remember to this day his emphasis on identification and am glad you mentioned it.”

—Roger Norton, ’71 , Texas A&M University

 

“The tributes to Carl Christ are really nice to read. I entered Professor Christ’s econometrics class when I arrived at Hopkins, in 1971. The first thing he did was to give everyone a 5 dollar bill, which he told us was the royalty on his book that we had to buy for the class. I was impressed, as were others – indeed, I can still see that scene in my mind even now. Later on, I marked his econometrics assignments, and he became my thesis supervisor. He was a famous scholar of uncompromising integrity with his students and in his own work. By example, he inspires still.

My deepest condolences to Mrs. Christ and her family.”

—Stanley L. Winer , Canada Research Chair Professor in Public Policy, School of Public Policy and Department of Economics, Carleton University, Canada

 

“I was a student at Hopkins 1973-77. Carl taught me econometrics-and impressed upon me the importance of identification and, as a result, structural estimation. I passed his semester of economic tricks, but failed the second semester (with Charley Mallor, I believe). They gave me an oral exam—he and Charley. Carl’s synopsis—“It’s like pulling teeth, but you pass. Just don’t do a thesis in econometrics.” Good advice.

His ability to sit like a pretzel, his good cheer on every day I ever was in his presence, his willingness to slide hard into the catcher at the annual softball game, his obsessively-compulsively organized office (journals were organized like dentin woodwork on a house, with each year’s worth of a journal lined up perfectly, but every other year’s collection pulled forward precisely one inch)—all were memorable. But grad school is an apprenticeship, and Carl was unstinting in his ability–by example and by the gifts of his time—to develop us into fellow professionals.

If there is an afterlife, I’ll bet for Carl it involves him sailing Lake Michigan in the mornings and writing research in the afternoons—as was his wont during the summers when I knew him.”

—Robert A Driskill , Vanderbilt University

 

“Like all of us I have a great memory of Prof Christ. I was at JHU during 1968 to 1972. He was not my thesis advisor, but I had always learned from him in and out of his courses. He was always a great teacher. And one summer I had the privilege of living in his beautiful home, being his house keeper when he was on vacation. When I was returning to Thailand to begin my teaching career at Thammasat University he gave me one advice which I always follow. He said ‘when writing a recommendation letter, always tell the truth’.

I am forever grateful for what he had done for me.”

—Narongchai Akrasanee , Bangkok, Thailand

 

“Thank you everybody for bringing back wonderful memories about Dr Christ who contributed so much in making my Hopkins years (1973-77) so enjoyable.

Like Jim and Ugo put so eloquently, Dr Christ was indeed a scholar, a teacher, a true gentleman and a mentor. He was also a father figure for foreign students like me.

I was very moved to read in his obituary that he “regularly participated in a weekly protest staged by residents along 40th Street in front of Roland Park Place, where he could be spotted carrying a sign that read “War is not the answer.””

We were lucky to have known him and to benefit from his teachings of economic tricks and more importantly from his exemplary behaviour as a teacher and mentor that will always be wit us.

My sincere condolences to his wife and family.”

—Andre Sapir

 

“Fun to read so many tributes to Carl. Certainly, a “man for all seasons”, one who was always civil and professionally courteous in all situations which I can remember in my JHU days. After almost 40 plus years in academic life, I certainly appreciate the witness of Carl’s manner and style of interacting with colleagues and students. A collegiality which we cannot always take for granted, and which we cannot ever underestimate as a value when we recruit faculty in our institutions.

On his teaching and academic advising, looking back, of course, we of my vintage remember well the extensive treatment of identification and of properly-specified government budget constraints in any model, for meaningful policy discussion.

We of the Johns Hopkins diaspora were very fortunately to have him as one of our professors.”

—Paul McNelis

 

“Professor Carl F. Christ was my and Poonsa-nga econometrics professor and Dissertation Adviser in different period of time in the 70’s. He was an amazing scholar, teacher, a true gentleman, a great mentor and the life at Hopkins.

He was liked our father during our wedding and beyond. It was a big opportunity provided by him for Poonsanga to be a postdoctoral fellow at MIT in 1976 and for me to do my dissertation immediately after being a Ph.D. candidate.

I have stayed with him and Mrs. Phyllis three times, first with Poonsanga in Baltimore home in 1982, second I was alone in his summer home with Lucy and her family and the third with my two sisters in their Baltimore home in 2006.

Apart from losing our teacher and dissertation adviser, we have lost our beloved father. He will be in our hearts for ever. Our sincere condolences to Mom Phyllis and their 3 daughters and grandchildren.”

—Poonsa-nga and Borwornsri Somboonpanya Ph.Ds , International Education Travel Co., Ltd. (IET), Bangkok, THAILAND

 

“I have very fond memories of my days as a graduate student at JHU in the 60s.

Carl was a great teacher, a model as a scholar, and a wonderful and unforgettable person.”

—Ernst Baltensperger

 

“Carl lived a long, active and productive life.

I was only on the faculty at Hopkins for a year as a young assistant professor, but Carl was remarkably kind and always prepared to discuss without any condescension and when I came back for a brief visit in 2006 it was as if I had never been away. A true gentleman and a scholar.”

—Alan Kirman , Directeur d’études à l’EHESS, Membre de l’IUF, Professeur émerite à Aix-Marseille Université, Paris

 

“It is great to read the tributes to Carl Christ. I was also a student of his in the early 70’s as well as his TA. He cared about all his students; both the graduate and undergraduate students, and spent a great deal of time with them. As a first-year graduate student, I was assigned to be a discussant on a paper that he presented. When the paper was published, I was listed in the acknowledgements, which was a thrill for a young graduate student – the first time my name was in a journal.

He has been a role model for me as an academic. When I do empirical work, I always think of him and his admonishment that no matter how sophisticated the methods, the work stands on the economics behind it.”

—Susan Vroman , Department of Economics, Georgetown University

 

“I have very fond memories of Carl that go as far back as 1952 when I started my graduate studies at JHU. I took econometrics from him, way before his book came out. The following year Richard Stone was visiting Hopkins and he and Carl organized an evening seminar to read Morgenstern and von Neumann on the theory of games – way before game theory became popular.

The last time I saw Carl and Phyllis was at a conference in 2014. Attached is a photo from that conference of Carl with Takeshi Amemiya, Al Harberger and me.”

—Marc Nerlove , Distinguished University Professor, Emeritus, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Maryland College Park

 

“I took econometrics from Carl in the mid 1970s. I had no idea about his background in physics until I read his obituary. I think this background explains why Carl always thought that there should be no conflict between economic theory and econometrics; they are complementary. This view of economic research was what he imparted to generations of his students. It was his imprint on those of us lucky enough to takes his courses.

He truly was a gentleman and a scholar and as decent a man as I have known. My condolences to his family on their loss.”

—Robert J. Rossana , Dept. of Economics, Wayne State University

 

“Dr. Christ was my graduate econometrics professor and I was his TA for undergraduate macroeconomics in spring ‘92.

As I recall, it was a large class and I assisted Dr. Christ in exam grading and keeping track of records which he all scribed by hand. He was of the generation prior to the internet age, and I remember him being extremely afraid of computer viruses affecting his non-internet ready PC with a floppy disk drive.

My efforts to cajole him into using Excel to add efficacy was futile and I was vetoed with his totally convinced _expression_ that this may infect his computer. I thought it was funny that an intellectual giant of physics and math/stat-intensive econometrics would be so concerned with a computer virus which had almost no chance of penetrating his computer.

He was a great communicator who resonated with undergraduate students. He will be greatly missed.”

—Jongsung Kim , Professor of Economics, Bryant University

 

“I entered the program too late to take Carl’s courses. When I was on the job market, Carl was the one who taught me how to communicate and negotiate with the other side. Maybe that was the time he taught me the real “economic tricks.” When he was very happy to know that I got an offer from U Texas, Carl said, “You see, you are already wearing jeans.” Then he told me the joke that, since Texans are so proud of being the largest state in the contiguous US, Alaskans would split the state in half so that Texas would become the third largest state in the US. I still remember his smile, which I saw several times again since I moved back to Hopkins. Maybe that is the thing that lured me back: an celebrated academic with a warm heart.”

—Yingyao Hu , Professor of Economics, Johns Hopkins University

 

“I was very saddened to hear of the passing away of Professor Christ. I was his student in the early seventies when I was a graduate student at Hopkins. He was a great teacher and a wonderful person. I too remember him returning the royalty money to the students who had purchased the Econometrics textbook. His stress on the Identification problem has stayed with all of us it seems.

Professor Christ was an inspiring teacher, and could set tough exams. He would set an open book final exam and students had twenty four hours to complete it. Most of us had to stay up all night trying to figure out the answers! He was an enthusiastic participant in all department activities, whether dissertation seminars or even Halloween parties!

Professor Christ was also my dissertation adviser,together with Professor Hugh Rose. He was generous with his time, and our discussions were always stimulating and thought provoking. My husband and I stayed with him and his wife when I visited Hopkins for my graduation, and we remember their warm hospitality. Please convey my sincere condolences to his wife, and other family members.”

—Bimal Kaicker Beri

 

“I studied in Hopkins 1966-69, took Carl’s modules on macroeconomics and econometrics, worked as his

A in undergraduate macroeconomics and benefited from generous hospitality at his fine house .

I have nothing but happy memories of my interactions with him during those years. He was brilliant without showmanship, considerate in all matters, diligent and conscientious as a lecturer. He gave us graduate students a deep and long-lasting insight into macroeconomic foundations. I count myself lucky to have had him as teacher and mentor.

There was something quintessentially American about him. He embodied the best of American virtues: openness, honesty, seriousness of purpose combined with optimism and a prevailing cheerfulness. Unlike many other US academic economists he seemed to have a strong sense of place, as witness his enduring devotion to Hopkins.

He was rightly admired as a man of the highest integrity. One of many instances of this stays in my memory. The recommended text for his econometrics module was (naturally and properly) his own textbook Econometric Models and Methods that had recently been published. It was an expensive tome and he was conscious of the tight budget constraint many of us graduates were subject to in those days. He believed it was wrong for him to benefit personally from his choice of textbook. Accordingly everyone in the class who had bought his book was given an envelope addressed in his own hand containing the amount of the royalty he would receive from each sale, calibrated to the last cent.

Thank you, Carl! I’ll raise a glass to you for a good life well-lived.

May he rest in peace.”

—Dermot McAleese , Emeritus Whately Professor of Political Economy, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

 

“I am deeply saddened to hear the news that Mr. Carl Christ has passed away on April 21, 2017. I join my fellow econ-alumni in offering my condolences to the family and friends of Carl was my teacher and thesis supervisor (with Bela Balaasa and Lawrence Klein (from U Penn) at the Department of Political Economy during 1985-1987. He was not only a kind teacher but also a great human being as he was always willing to help student.

What I liked most about Carl was that he would comment on the papers of the faculty and graduate students during Graduate Student Seminars in a polite yet constructive manner. I never found him being harsh while offering comments. I had the opportunity to interact with Carl on a regular basis, when I was writing my Ph.D. dissertation. His comments were always constructive and improved the quality of my work.

Let me share with my fellow econ-alumni some interesting facts about Carl and my Ph.D. defense. I defended my thesis on August 5, 1987. By then Carl had already left for Beijing to set up JHU Campus in China. My other supervisor, Bela Balassa had to go through 13 hours throat surgery in Washington, D.C on August 4, 1987—a day prior to my defense. He too, was therefore not available during my defense. Larry Klein was in some Latin American Country and had promised to be present at my defense on August 5. By 10:50 am (the defense time was 11:00 am), Klein did not show up at the JHU which made me really nervous, thinking that none of my supervisors would be there during my defense. However, by 10:55am, Larry Klein entered the building of Economic department. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Larry Klein with his travel bag entering the department. Bruce Hamilton and Louis Maccini represented Carl and Balassa in my defense.

Before Carl left for Beijing, I had a long meeting with him in his office where we went through the final draft of the thesis. He was very much satisfied with my work which gave me enough confidence and encouragement to defend my thesis, of course, Larry Klein was a great source of strength during the defense. I defended my thesis on August 5, 1987 with minor comments; submitted the revised version within 10 days and left US on August 25, 1987. My thesis defense was a memorable event for me as I defended my thesis in the absence of two of my supervisors (Carl and Bela).

It was indeed a privilege and honor for not only knowing Carl but also being his student. With Carl’s demise, I lost all of my thesis supervisors. The world has lost three great human beings that the God had bestowed on us. May God rest Carl’s, Bela’s and Klein’s souls in peace and give strength to their families and friends to bear this loss.”

—Professor Ashfaque Hasan Khan , Principal & Dean, School of Social Sciences & Humanities (S3H), National University of Sciences & Technology (NUST), Islamabad

 

“I entered Hopkins in 1961, the same year as the second coming of Carl to JHU. When I applied to JHU, I was attracted by the names like Machlup, Domar, and Musgrave, but both Machlup and Domar were gone by the time I entered. Musgrave was still there for two more years, and I learned a great deal by reading his textbook Public Finance. A greatest boost for me, however, was the fact that Carl came back in the same year. He invited me to his office and asked me if I liked mathematics. I proudly answered yes. Then he asked me if I knew differential equations. My heart sagged as I didn’t know them. During the first two years at Hopkins I worked as research assistant to Dr. Edwin Mills in his project on water resources. It was good education for me as Dr. Mills was a man of a very sharp mind. But I was bogged down by the need to study geology of water, which I found extremely boring. Just then Carl came along and suggested I should work on econometrics, which I did. Initially I had planned to finish my dissertation in two years, but as my father became rather ill, I wanted to finish the thesis in one year and go back to Japan with a doctor’s degree and show it to my father. He died two weeks after I came home. I couldn’t have finished the thesis in one year without Carl’s cooperation way beyond his duty. The other members of the committee were Edwin Mills and Geoff Watson, to whom I am also grateful.”

—Takeshi Amemiya , Stanford University

 

“I took Dr. Christ’s course in Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory in spring 1963, and his econometrics course in 1965-66. Dr. Christ was a brilliant and challenging teacher. He always gave each student, who purchased his econometrics book for class, a refund equal to the amount of the book royalty. I have never had another professor do that. During my time in graduate school, Dr. Christ was the Department Chair. In my opinion, he did an excellent job.”

—Alan Sorkin , Ph.D.,1966

 

“As a grad student, I took Professor Christ’s Econometrics course in 1971-72 and also TA’d for him in the undergraduate macro principles course. For someone seeking a career at a teaching institution, as I did, there couldn’t have been a better role model than Professor Christ. He took great pains to make sure the TA’s knew what he would be lecturing on before each class, prepared us for what would be the most difficult material for the students, allowed us (really, expected us) to come up with our own quiz and exam questions, met with us regularly, etc. One day each week he would have lunch in the undergraduates’ cafeteria, just so his students would have a chance to interact with him outside the classroom setting. What a great example he set of a true teacher-scholar! I feel very fortunate to have been mentored by him.”

—Geoffrey Gilbert , Professor Emeritus of Economics, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

 

I once came across Dr. Carl Christ in the hallway when I was still a graduate student. We briefly talked and he was very approachable to me. He gave me a lot of encouragement on economics study and also a few books that I still keep them now. He was a gracious scholar and gentleman.

—Yizhen Zhao , East Carolina University

 

Carl Christ has made a lasting positive difference. He was my thesis supervisor

during my graduate school days at Hopkins (1962-1966). I also served as his teaching assistant in an undergraduate course in economics. I chose university teaching and research as a profession, from which I am now retired. Whenever a student thanked me for my supervision and advice, I smiled in thankful remembrance of my experience with Professor Christ. I endeavoured to pass on the Christ attitude towards students, even though lacking his natural devotion to the cause of education and, above all, his easy ability to detect and direct you, always, to the important details in the analysis or argument. I received prompt and insightful comment when I submitted research to Carl Christ as late as 2004. A resounding thank-you. May the life that Carl Christ lived lessen the family’s grief at his passing.

—John W. Iton , Ph.D.(1966) Retired

 

I would like to mention another way in which Carl Christ was a memorable professor — he was a terrific teacher of undergraduates.

I was an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins (BA ’88), and I went on to graduate school in economics later on. I took Macro Principles with Carl (or Dr. Christ, as I called him then), and Micro Principles with Bruce Hamilton, and both the content of these classes and the personal regard of both professors had a huge influence on me. (And while I’m mentioning it, so did my first TAs, Jonathan Neuberger and Greg Hess.)

Carl was gracious to everyone, but not only that — he took me, as a 19-year-old, seriously. I recognize, now that I am a professor too, how meaningful that is. I got more and more excited about economics the more classes I took, and I ended up taking some first-year graduate classes, including econometrics from Carl, before I left Hopkins. As many of the letter writers have mentioned, his emphasis on simultaneous equations models stayed with me forever after!

I look back very fondly on these formative years that I experienced at Johns Hopkins.

—Leora Friedberg , Department of Economics, University of Virginia

 

Carl and I exchanged holiday cards regularly for more than 40 years, updating each other on our professional, family, and social accomplishments and challenges. Like many of my fellow Hopkins doctoral students, Carl Christ was a friendly, insightful, and demanding professor: certainly one of the great leaders in the department when I was there from 1967-71. Two anecdotes: Our econometrics class was one of the first to use his textbooks. One of the students in the class – not me – off handedly mentioned that there might be a conflict of interest if an instructor required his students to purchase a book that he had written. The next class day Carl gave each of us who had purchased the book something like $2.00 to reflect his royalties. However, his generosity had limits: there was nothing for anyone who had purchases a used copy. Second: At the time I was at Hopkins the department was on the top floor of Gilman Hall. There was a back staircase, and one day after lunch several doctoral students, including myself, decided to race us the stairs from the ground floor. We did this in waves, and not very quietly. At one point, at the top of the landing, we were greeted by Carl, and expected a stern “what are you doing?” or “you are disturbing the peace.” Instead, he simply smiled and asked what was the best time. I suspect that he might have tried to beat it!

—Bruce Jaffee , Emeritus Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy, Indiana University

 

Image Source:  Carl Christ at the Mathematical Economics Conference in Honor of M. Ali Khan in 2013.  From the gallery of pictures at “In Memoriam–Carl Christ (1923-2017)”.

Categories
Business School Economists Harvard

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus and Harvard Business School Professor, Copeland, 1910

 

Another obituary for the series: Meet a Ph.D. Economist! Copeland apparently was the first to organize a collection of case studies that were later to became a hallmark of the Harvard Business School. Of particular value is the link I found to his history of the Harvard Business School that was published in 1958.

_______________________________________

Examination for the Degree of Ph.D.
Division of History and Political Science

Melvin Thomas Copeland.

Special Examination in Economics, Friday, December 14, 1909.
General Examination passed May 13, 1908.
Committee: Professors Ripley (chairman), Hart, Carver, Sprague, and Munro.
Academic History: Bowdoin College, 1902-06; Harvard Graduate School, 1906-09; A.B. (Bowdoin), 1906; A. M. (Harvard) 1907. Austin Teaching Fellow (Harvard), 1908-09; Instructor, 1909-10.
Special Subject: Economic History of the United States.
Thesis Subject: “The Organization of the Cotton Manufacturing Industry in the United States.” (With Professors Taussig and Gay.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Gay, Ripley, and Sprague.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examinations for the Ph.D. (HUC 7000.70), Folder “Examinations for the Ph.D., 1909-10”.

_______________________________________

 

Source: Harvard Business School Yearbook, 1930-31.

_______________________________________

From the Report of the President of Harvard College, 1975-75

Melvin Thomas Copeland, George Fisher Baker Professor of Administration, Emeritus, died March 27, 1975 in his 91st year. Although not a member of the Business faculty until 1912 when the School was four years old, “Doc” Copeland justly ranks with its founders because of his organization of the first collection of business cases for study. A 1906 graduate of Bowdoin College, Copeland came to Harvard to earn his A.M. (1907) and Ph.D. (1910) degrees. His doctoral dissertation, Cotton Manufacturing Industry of the U.S.,  won the Wells Prize and was published in 1912. While still a graduate student, he served as an Assistant in Economics and later as Instructor in Economic Resources. He then spent a year teaching on the faculty of New York University, returning to Harvard in 1912 to teach a course in business statistics at the fledgling Business School, thus beginning a career which continued until his retirement in 1953. Copeland became an Instructor in Marketing in 1914, Professor of Marketing in 1919, and was Director of the Bureau of Business Research twice (from 1916 to 1920 and from 1942 to 1953). He worked on the organization of business cases and on project research for faculty members in this latter job. He was named George Fisher Baker Professor in 1950. Over the years he earned a reputation as a distinguished editor and writer on business topics; before his retirement he produced six books, and afterwards was asked to write the Business School’s history, And Mark an Era, which appeared in 1958. His volume about the Gloucester, Massachusetts area where he lived, The Saga of Cape Ann (1960), also appeared after his retirement. In 1973, in his eighty-ninth year, Copeland received from the Business School its Distinguished Service Award.

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and reports of departments, 1974-75, pp. 32-3.

Image Source: Harvard Album, 1920.

 

 

Categories
Chicago Economists

Chicago. Economics Department on Possible Candidate for Permanent Employment, 1950

 

How big was the split within the department of economics in 1950 at the University of Chicago? Judging from the decision by chairman T. W. Schultz to essentially table the matter of approaching the central university administration with a candidate for a permanent position, there was a departmental deadlock.

The half-dozen economists discussed were: George Stigler, Abba Lerner, Kenneth Boulding, Leonid Hurwicz, Kenneth Arrow, and Lawrence Klein. Contemplate those names for a moment and then read aloud the following two sentences:

Several members of the Department stated that none of these men had all of the qualities sought: a good mind reaching out fruitfully in new directions in economics. It was agreed, however, that there were no likely candidates possessing these qualities in a high degree.   

We can only speculate which alpha economists happened to lock horns in those three meetings.

_________________________

From the MINUTES, Meeting of the Department,
May 24, 1950.

Present: T. W. Schultz, T. Koopmans, A. Rees, H. G. Lewis, D. G. Johnson, E. J. Hamilton, R. Burns, J. Marschak, F. H. Harbinson, F. H. Knight, M. Friedman, B. Hoselitz, L. Metzler

[…]

II. Appointments

Schultz informed the Department that Hildreth’s position has been renegotiated for a term of three years. The Department approved a motion authorizing for Hildreth the courtesy rank of Associate Professor for a three year term.

The Department then considered the appointment problem raised by the leaving of Blough (probably initially on a one year leave of absence) and Brownlee. Schultz suggested that the Department had two alternatives open to it: a temporary replacement (construed broadly) and a permanent appointment of a top ranking person.

The Department considered first possible candidates for permanent appointment. Attention centered on George Stigler, Abba Lerner, Kenneth Boulding, Leonid Hurwicz, Kenneth Arrow, and Lawrence Klein. For a temporary appointment Schultz suggested Gunnar Myrdal.

[Meeting began at 3:30 pm and ended 5:45 p.m.]

_________________________

From the MINUTES, Meeting of the Department,
May 30, 1950.

Present: T. W. Schultz, R. Burns, D. G. Johnson, E. J. Hamilton, F. H. Knight, L. Metzler, R. Blough, F. H. Harbinson, A. Rees, H. G. Lewis, T. Koopmans, J. Marschak, M. Friedman.

Appointments

The discussion of appointments continued from the previous meeting. Schultz expressed the conviction that the time was propitious for a new permanent appointment. On Metzler’s suggestion, the Department returned to discussion of the following candidates for a permanent appointment: Stigler, Hurwicz, Boulding, Klein, Lerner, Arrow.

Several members of the Department stated that none of these men had all of the qualities sought: a good mind reaching out fruitfully in new directions in economics. It was agreed, however, that there were no likely candidates possessing these qualities in a high degree.

The chairman then polled those present with respect to their first choice (or ties for first) for a permanent appointment. As a result of the poll the list of candidates was narrowed to Hurwicz, Stigler, and Lerner. The chairman then polled those present on their position toward permanent appointment of each of these men.

The poll showed that of those present

4 would favor and 5 oppose the permanent appointment of Hurwicz
4 would favor and 5 oppose the permanent appointment of Lerner
6 would favor and 6 oppose the permanent appointment of Stigler

A motion was passed instructing the chairman to poll the absent members of the Department in the same way on the appointment of Hurwicz, Lerner, and Stigler and to report back to the Department for further discussion.

[Meeting began at 3:30 pm and ended 6:15 p.m.]

_________________________

From the MINUTES, Meeting of the Department,
June 8, 1950.

Present: T. W. Schultz, H. G. Lewis, D. G. Johnson, J. Marschak, H. Kyrk, P. Thomson, M. Friedman, T. Koopmans, A. Rees, E. J. Hamilton, F. H. Knight, R. Blough.

Appointments

Schultz reported that he had polled Kyrk, Thomson, Mints, and Nef (but had not heard from Goode) on the matter of a permanent appointment for Stigler or Hurwicz or Lerner. The upshot of the poll was that the Department, the Chairman not voting, was evidently divided in its rating of Stigler for a permanent appointment; both permanent members and temporary members of the faculty showed an even division. The Chairman explained that he would abstain from voting on the belief that the Department was not now prepared to advance, with a strong meeting of minds, a strong case to the Central Administration for a permanent appointment. Schultz proposed that we investigate a slate of names for a one-year appointment.

A motion was passed authorizing the Chairman to put Gunnar Myrdal in the first position on the slate for a one-year appointment.

Successive motions passed by the Department added the following names to the slate:

Nicholas Kaldor   Simon Kuznets
Arthur F. Burns
H. M. Henderson
W. Vickrey
A. Hart
H. Stein

The Department then, following the system of ranking used in fellowship appointments, ranked these seven persons. The rank order follows:

1. Kaldor
2. Burns
3. Henderson
4. Kuznets
5½. Vickrey
5½. Hart
7. Stein

[Meeting began at 3:30 pm and ended 6:00 p.m.]

Source: University of Chicago Archives, Department of Economics Records, Box 41, Folder 12.

Image Source: Social Science Research Building.  University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf2-07466, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

 

Categories
Economists Harvard Yale

Harvard. Three generations of Economics Ph.D.’s. The Ruggles Dynasty

 

 

The passing of the torch from one generation in a family to another in economics is noteworthy, but hardly a rare occurrence. Everyone has heard of James and John Stuart Mill, Neville and Maynard Keynes, Robert Aaron and Margaret S. and their economist sons Robert J. and David Gordon, Bob and Anita with their bouncing Larry Summers, Richard and Jonathan Portes, as well as Ken and Jamie Galbraith, to drop only a few names. But one can honestly say that economists are underachievers in this torch-passing respect.

After all, musicians appear to find little difficulty in getting the beat to go on in the family, medical doctors seem to fall from family trees of doctors, the clergy (for religions in which sexual reproduction is a feature and not a bug) show little difficulty in begetting future clerics, and indeed the professional military is generally successful in instilling a pride of warriorship in its young. At least we economists can console ourselves that no one has (yet) composed a song with a title like “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys”.

With all of this in mind, I present Economics in the Rear-view Mirror’s very first economics Ph.D. family trifecta: meet the Ruggles dynasty, three generations of Harvard economics Ph.D.’s who collectively span a century’s worth of economics right up to the present day.

I’ll let others assess the “relative” achievements of the dynasty founder, Clyde Orval Ruggles (“The economic basis of the greenback movement in Iowa and Wisconsin”, Harvard PhD, 1913),  vs. the middle-generation of Clyde’s son, Richard Francis Ruggles (“Price structure and distribution over the cycle”, Harvard PhD, 1942), and Richard’s first wife, Nancy Dunlap Ruggles (“Resource allocation and pricing systems”, Radcliffe PhD, 1949), vs. Clyde’s granddaughter, Patricia Ruggles (“The allocation of taxes and government expenditures among households in the United States”, Harvard PhD, 1980). Two remarks: (i) Appointments to a professorship at the Harvard Business School (Clyde) or to staff director of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress and a pair of NSF fellowships (Patricia) are hardly chopped liver according to any meaningful metric; (ii) published tributes to the work of Richard and Nancy Ruggles are easy to find.

  • Barbara M. Fraumeni “Ruggles and Ruggles—A National Income Accounting Partnership” Survey of Current Business, April, 2001, 14-15. 
  • Timothy Smeeding (December 2001), In Memoriam: Richard Ruggles—a man for all seasons (1916-2001). Review of Income and Wealth, 47: 561-563.
    James Tobin (September 2001), In Memoriam: Richard Ruggles (1916-2001). Review of Income and Wealth, 47: 405–408.
  • Edward N. Wolff (September 2001), In Memoriam: Richard Ruggles (1916-2001). Review of Income and Wealth, 47: 409–415.
  • Helen Stone Tice (June 2004), Essays in Honor of Nancy and Richard Ruggles: Editor’s Introduction. Review of Income and Wealth, 50: 149-151.

Below you will find a variety of artifacts culled from public sources with (auto-)biographical information about the members of this dynasty. 

_______________________________________

Biographical Note about Clyde Orval Ruggles from the Baker Library of Harvard Business School

Clyde Orval Ruggles was born in Fairfield, Iowa on December 7, 1878. He received his BA from Iowa State Teachers College in 1906, his MA from the University of Iowa in 1907, and his PhD from Harvard in 1913. He also received a Litt.D. from Suffolk University in 1938.

Ruggles was the head of the Department of History and Social Science at the Iowa State Teachers College from 1909-1913. He then served on the faculty of the Department of Economics at Ohio State University from 1913-1920. He left Ohio State for a year to take up the position of Head of the School of Commerce and the Department of Economics at the University of Iowa from 1920-1921. He then moved back to Ohio State in 1921, serving as the Head of the Department of Business Administration from 1921 to 1926, and as Dean of the College of Commerce and Journalism from 1926-1928.

In 1928 he came to HBS as a Professor of Public Utility Management (later amended to Professor of Public Utility Management and Regulation), a position he held until his retirement from HBS in 1948, when he became an emeritus professor. He also served as the Director of the Division of Research from 1940-1942. After his retirement from HBS, he continued to teach, lecturing at or serving on the faculties of Ohio State, Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, the Georgia Institute of Technology and Northeastern University.

Ruggles was a nationally known economist with diverse research interests in the areas of public utilities management and business education. In addition to his academic work, Ruggles also served as a consultant to a variety of public and private agencies and companies, including the Civil Aeronautics Board, the National Monetary Commission, the United States Shipping Board, and the Montreal Tramways Company.

Ruggles’ publications include Terminal Charges at United States Ports (1919), Problems in Public Utility Economics and Management (1933 and 1938), Aspects of the Organization, Functions and Financing of State Public Utility Commissions (1937), and numerous journal and newspaper articles.

Clyde O. Ruggles died on April 6, 1958 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

 

Source:   Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard Business School, Harvard University. Clyde O. Ruggles Papers, 1918-1957: A Finding Aid.

Image Source: Harvard Business School Yearbook 1938-39.

_______________________________________

Clyde O. Ruggles’ Daughter Catherine G. Ruggles
Radcliffe Ph.D. Conferred, June 1937

Catherine Grace Ruggles, A.M. Subject, Economics. Special Field, Public Finance. Dissertation, “The Financial History of Cambridge, 1846-1935.” Research Assistant, Harvard Department of Economics.

Source: Radcliffe College, President’s Report 1936-37, p. 20.

_______________________________________

American Economic Association’s Biographical Listing of Members (Dec. 1981)

Ruggles, Nancy D., 100 Prospect St., New Haven, CT 06511. Phone: Office (203)436-8583; Home (203) 777-4187. Fields: 220, 320. Birth Yr: 1922. Degrees: A.B., Pembroke Coll., 1943; Ph.D., Radcliffe Coll., 1948. Prin. Cur. Position: Sr. Res. Econ., Yale U., 1980-. Concurrent/Past Positions: Secy., Int’l. Assn. for Res. in Income & Wealth, 1961-; Asst. Dir., Statistical Off., United Nations, 1975-80. Research: Nat. acctg. systems & their integration with economic-social microdata.

Ruggles, Richard, 100 Prospect St., New Haven, CT 06511. Phone: Office (203) 436-4040; Home (203) 777-4187. Fields: 220, 320. [Birth Yr: 1916.] Degrees: A.B., Harvard Coll., 1939; M.A. Harvard U., 1941; Ph.D., Harvard U., 1942. Prin. Cur. Position: Prof. of Econs., Yale U., 1947-. Research: Nat. acctg. systems & their integration with economic-social microdata.

 

Source: Biographical Listing of Members in the 1981 Survey of Members (Dec., 1981) The American Economic Review, Vol. 71, No. 6. p. 354.

_______________________________________

Richard Ruggles (1916-2001),
Noted Economic Statistician, Dies

Richard Ruggles, a member of the Yale economics faculty for nearly 40 years who was a specialist in the fields of national economic accounting and economic theory, died March 4 at his home in New Haven of complications from prostate cancer.

Professor Ruggles, who was 84, was known for developing accounting tools for measuring national income and improving price indexes used in formulating government policy. Throughout his Yale career, he conducted research for numerous government agencies and bodies, including the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the Federal Reserve Board, the Bureau of the Census and the National Bureau of Economic Research, as well as the Ford Foundation. He also served on various governmental committees concerned with economic statistics.

The economist did much of his work with his first wife, Nancy, who died in 1987. Pricing Systems, Indexes, and Price Behavior, Macro- and Microdata Analyses and Their Integration, and National Accounting and Economic Policy, collections of their work, were published in 1999.

Born on June 15, 1916, in Columbus, Ohio, Mr. Ruggles was the son of economist Clyde O. Ruggles, who taught at and was dean [sic] of the Harvard Business School. The younger Mr. Ruggles attended Harvard for both undergraduate and graduate study, earning his B.A. in 1939, an M.A. in 1941 and his Ph.D. in 1942.

After earning his doctorate, Professor Ruggles joined the Office of Strategic Services as an economist. During World War II, he worked for the office in London, where he estimated the production rates of tanks at German factories using photographs of the serial numbers from captured or destroyed tanks. In 1945-46 he was with the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey in Tokyo and Washington.

Professor Ruggles returned briefly to Harvard as an instructor in 1946 before joining the Yale faculty a year later as an assistant professor of economics. He was named an associate professor in 1949 and a full professor in 1954. He was appointed the Stanley Resor Professor of Economics in 1954. He chaired the Department of Economics from 1959 to 1962, and also served as director of undergraduate studies in the department.

Professor Ruggles and his family traveled frequently, making trips to the Soviet Union and to various developing countries, among other places.

Professor Ruggles married Caridad Navarette Kindelán in 1989. In addition to his wife, he is survived by three children, Steven Ruggles of Minneapolis, Minnesota; Patricia Ruggles of Washington, D.C.; and Catherine Ruggles of Los Angeles, California; two sisters, Catherine Ruggles Gerrish of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Rebecca Ruggles of New York City; four grandchildren; and his wife’s seven children and 13 grandchildren.

 

Source: Yale Bulletin & Calendar, Vol. 29, No. 23 (March 23, 2001).

_______________________________________

Memories and Musings of Yale by Richard Ruggles (ca. 2000)

In 1939 I graduated from Harvard with my classmates, William Parker and James Tobin, and like them undertook graduate study in economics. The previous cohort of Harvard graduate students in economics was very distinguished and included Paul Samuelson, Ken Galbraith, Abe Bergson, Lloyd Reynolds, John Miller, Lloyd Metzler, Robert Triffin, Henry Wallich, and many others, including my sister Catherine Ruggles. With the outbreak of World War II, Bill Parker went into the Army and Jim Tobin went into the Navy. I managed to finish my graduate work and I went into OSS. I served in London in 1943, in Europe in 1944, and went to Japan for the Bombing Survey at the end of the war.

In 1946, I returned to Harvard as an Instructor and married Nancy Dunlap, who enrolled as a graduate student in economics at Radcliffe. At the 1946 meetings of the American Economic Association, I met John Miller, who had moved to Yale, and he invited me to give a talk at Yale. I did so and was appointed Assistant Professor. At that time Ed Lindblom, Neil Chamberlain and Challis Hall were also appointed as Assistant Professors. Although, at Harvard, Yale was viewed as a boys’ finishing school, there was a group of younger faculty members who were highly regarded. In addition to John Miller, Lloyd Reynolds had come from Harvard, and there were Max Millikan, Richard Bissell (who was always on leave) and Wight Bakke. The so-called “ice cap” consisted of pre-Keynesian economists who, for the most part, specialized in specific areas such as transportation, corporate finance, accounting, and money and banking. Generally speaking, the “ice-cap” were reasonable men, but they were oriented toward training Yale undergraduates to go out into the business world.

The newly appointed Assistant Professors were quite congenial and held Saturday night dances in the Strathcona lounge. There was, however, no role for professional women in the Economics Department so Nancy and I became consultants for the government, the United Nations, and foundations. In 1948, we went to Europe for the Economic Cooperation Administration. In the 1950s, we worked for ECA in Washington, the Ford Foundation, and the United Nations in New York. When the Korean war broke out, we were asked to create an intelligence unit for the CIA for collecting and analyzing Soviet factory markings. We hired some Yale students and employees from ECA. At Yale we developed a “Rapid Selector” project in conjunction with the Yale Electrical Engineering Department to help analyze the factory markings data collected from Korea. The “Yale Rapid Selector” was quickly made obsolete by the development of computers.

During the 1950s, Lloyd Reynolds was building up the Economics Department at Yale. He recruited Robert Triffin, Henry Wallich, and William Fellner. The Yale Economics Department was becoming known for the quality of its faculty. At that time, the Cowles Commission at the University of Chicago was unhappy with their arrangements there and approached Lloyd about coming to Yale. The arrangements for bringing Cowles to Yale were made in 1955, with Tjalling Koopmans and Jacob Marschak being appointed as Professors in the Economics Department. As part of the agreement, the Econometric Society also moved to Yale, and I agreed to serve as Secretary, with Nancy as Treasurer.

By 1959, however, friction developed between some members of the Cowles Foundation and the Chairman, Lloyd Reynolds. As a consequence I was asked to serve as chair. As Chairman I managed to recruit Joe Peck, William Parker, and Hugh Patrick, who had been an undergraduate at Yale and had participated in the CIA Korean project. However, I did not like being Chairman, and I resigned in 1962.

The Yale Economic Growth Center was established in 1961. Lloyd Reynolds and I had served as consultants to the Ford Foundation, and they had expressed an interest in establishing a center for the study of economic development at Yale. In addition, Nancy and I were actively consulting for the Agency for International Development in Washington D.C., and they also wished to foster such research. As a consequence, Lloyd Reynolds established the Yale Economic Growth Center. It had as its mission the development of “country studies” of economic development. Graduate students in economics writing their doctoral dissertations were sent to developing countries to do “country studies.” To facilitate and manage the operations, Miriam Chamberlain was appointed Executive Secretary to manage the day-to-day operations of the Growth Center. Miriam had been working at the Ford Foundation in New York and had moved back to New Haven when her husband Neil was made a Professor of Labor Economics. Mary Reynolds, wife of Lloyd Reynolds, was placed in charge of building up a library of books, documents, and data relating to developing countries. Nancy Ruggles was hired with AID funds to design the framework of data for the country studies. In addition, Nancy agreed to become the Secretary of the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, which was transferred to the Economic Growth Center from the University of Cambridge, England. All three women had Ph.D.s from Radcliffe and were highly qualified for their functions.

To some members of the Economics Department, however, the hiring of faculty wives seemed inappropriate, and in 1966 the Chairman, therefore, asked for their resignations. Simon Kuznets suggested that Nancy and I could carry out our research program at the National Bureau of Economic Research in New York. For the next decade I carried out my research activities at the NBER in New York and Washington D.C. I taught the undergraduate course of the “Economics of the Public Sector,” the Senior Honors Seminar, the graduate course in “National Accounting,” and carried out the administrative tasks of Director of Undergraduate Studies or Director of Graduate Studies in Economics.

In 1978, I transferred my research activities from the NBER to the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale. Nancy had been employed as the Assistant Director of the United Nations Statistical Office, but she also became associated with ISPS in 1980. We jointly carried out our research at ISPS until the accidental death of Nancy in 1987.

 

Source:   M. Ann Judd, The Yale Economics Department: Memories and Musings of Past Leaders

_______________________________________

Nancy Dunlap Ruggles
Radcliffe Ph.D., 1948

When Yale’s Economic Growth Center was founded in the 1961, three women, all with Ph.D.s, were hired as researchers or administrators. All three also happened to be married to Yale economics professors.

Five years later, amid a flash of concern about nepotism, the three women were required to leave their positions, despite being fully qualified.

For one of the women, Nancy Ruggles, the injustice was particularly acute given that she co-authored essentially all of her tenured husband’s academic work — a partnership she and her spouse, Yale economist Richard Ruggles, acknowledged and treasured.

“The situation with Nancy Ruggles was a shame, because she was someone who had all of the necessary qualifications to be a professor, should have been, and would be under present circumstances,” Yale economist and Nobel laureate Jim Tobin would later lament.

As Yale marks Women’s History Month and continues to commemorate the 50th anniversary of coeducation in Yale College and the 150th anniversary of female students at the university, it celebrates the visible achievement of women students and faculty. There’s also fresh appreciation of scholars whose accomplishments went unrecognized because of their gender.

Nancy Ruggles was born in 1922 and grew up during the Great Depression and World War II, formative experiences that exposed her to the importance of economics. She completed her undergraduate degree at Pembroke College, the women’s college affiliated with Brown University, in 1943. Immediately afterward, she took a job with the Office of Price Administration. There, through a co-worker, she met her future husband, Harvard economics Ph.D. Richard Ruggles.

Their daughter, Patricia Ruggles ’74, said Nancy’s experiences in Washington, D.C. during the war led her to study economics, and that Richard encouraged Nancy to enroll in a Ph.D. program once the war was over. At Radcliffe College, Nancy wrote her thesis on marginal cost pricing, an innovative idea at the time, and received her doctorate in 1948.

Patricia Ruggles said her mother, like other women, was made to accept less illustrious degrees from women’s colleges.

“My mother was very insulted when she was offered to trade her [Radcliffe] Ph.D. for a Harvard one both because it implied that a Radcliffe degree was second class and because she had been denied a Harvard degree in the first place, even though all of her courses were at Harvard.”

The Ruggles moved to New Haven in 1946, after Richard was appointed a professor at Yale. Together, their main research focus was developing the rules for national income accounting, which measures economic activity in a country. In 1947, the Ruggles worked on the implementation of the Marshall Plan and helped develop assessments for measuring the aid’s effectiveness in stimulating the health of European economies. Later, the Ruggles’ framework was adopted for calculating U.S. national accounts.

“As far as I know, my father never wrote anything without my mother as a co-author during the time they were married,” Patricia Ruggles said.

In a review of the Ruggles’ work, economist Utz-Peter Reich remembers Richard’s response to a question about the authorship of their work as, “It does not matter — it’s always been both of us who have been at it anyway.”

Still, gender barriers were a common theme in Nancy Ruggles’ career. She was a founding member of the International Association for Research on Income and Wealth and its secretary for many years. Though her husband served as editor of the association’s journal, she in fact did the bulk of the editorial work with manuscripts, according to Patricia Ruggles, because Richard was dyslexic.

The pair did much of their research out of their home on Prospect Street, which Sterling Professor of Economics and Economic Growth Center founder Lloyd Reynolds remembered as a “two-person, computerized data factory.”

According to Professor Emeritus Bill Brainard, the Ruggles had installed a 24-volt system to control all electricity in the house and created a sophisticated data storage center in the home. He also recalled a Ford van the Ruggles outfitted with plumbing and communications infrastructure, allowing them to work on road trips across the country and even around the world, going as far as Russia after World War II.

The Ruggles’ dynamism as a research duo was recognized and appreciated by many of their contemporaries. Said Tobin, “[The Ruggles] were probably the best husband-wife team in the history of economics.”

Unfortunately for Nancy Ruggles, the prevailing view at Yale during her time was that appointing spouses to faculty positions was immoral nepotism, especially within the same department, Tobin said.

After being let go from Yale, she went on to work for the United Nations, where she was assistant director of the Statistical Office from 1975 to 1980. In that role, she helped develop the rules for national income accounts published by the United Nations, especially for developing countries for whom the accounting rules of developed countries were less applicable. Her work had important implications for crafting economic development policies globally. After 1980, Nancy Ruggles returned to Yale, becoming affiliated with the Institute for Social and Policy Studies as a senior research economist. Back in New Haven, she resumed her joint research with her husband. She died in 1987.

“My parents were a very effective team except for the fact that my mother got no recognition for her part of it,” said Patricia Ruggles, who earned an economics degree as a member of Yale’s second fully co-ed undergraduate class, in 1974.

Following in her parents’ footsteps, she also went on to earn a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard, in 1980.

It would not be until 2001 that Yale had its first tenured women economics professor, when the department hired Penny Goldberg from Columbia University.

Source:  Lisa Qian, “Giving economist Nancy Ruggles her due” web publication of Yale News, March 10, 2020.

_______________________________________

About Patricia Ruggles at the NORC website

[2018]

Pat Ruggles
Senior Fellow
Economics, Justice, and Society

B.A., Economics, Yale University
M.A., Economics, Harvard Unversity
Ph.D., Economics, Harvard Unversity

Patricia Ruggles is a Senior Fellow with the Economics, Labor and Population Studies department. She has worked throughout her career to improve the quality of the economic and social statistics used for research and policy analysis. She has been involved in the development of methods for analyzing longitudinal data sets since the 1980s, when she was a researcher at the Urban Institute. She was an early user of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), using it to create integrated longitudinal files for the analysis of income and poverty spells over time. She served on the National Academy of Sciences Panel to evaluate the SIPP in 1989 and 1990.

Patricia has held two NSF/ASA fellowships at the Bureau of the Census, both focused on improving data quality and usability.. The analyses of poverty-related issues that came out of her first NSF fellowship contributed to her book, Drawing the Line, which analyzed the impacts of alternative poverty measures. That book led to a major review of poverty measurement by the National Academy of Sciences, and Census is now issuing a Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) that incorporates those recommendations. Patricia’s second NSF fellowship at Census focused on improving welfare program data in the SIPP, and led to her well-known work with Rebecca Blank on the dynamics of welfare spells. Patricia has also published many other studies based on the SIPP, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and other longitudinal data bases.

Patricia joined the staff of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress in 1990, where she was concerned with data and measurement issues that affect policy analysis. In addition to a series of hearings on poverty measurement, she organized hearings on price measurement, unemployment, productivity, and other major economic indicators. She also worked extensively on issues relating to health insurance, health needs, and welfare. After a break to serve in the Clinton Administration, Patricia returned to the JEC as staff director in 2000.

In 1996 Patricia became the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Income Policy and the Chief Economist for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In that role she was responsible for an annual budget of about $20 million to oversee research on issues relating to income and poverty.

More recently, Patricia has worked at the National Academy of Sciences on projects relating to social and economic indicators and on a re-evaluation of the SIPP. She has also consulted with the city of New York on the creation of a city-specific poverty measure and with the United Nations on tracking environmental data in the context of the System of National Accounts.

Source:NORC experts webpage for Patricia Ruggles  .

 

[2013 NORC announcement of appointment of Patricia Ruggles]

Leading Poverty Economist Patricia Ruggles Joins NORC at the University of Chicago as a Senior Fellow in the Economics, Labor, and Population Studies Department

6/12/2013, Bethesda, MD.

– Patricia Ruggles, Ph.D., a long-time advocate for better poverty measurement and other important economic and social indicators, has been named a Senior Fellow at NORC at the University of Chicago. Ruggles has worked at the highest levels in both government and higher education. She has also written books and journal articles on poverty and on improving the quality of the economic and social statistics used for research and policy analysis. She has testified frequently before Congress on these issues, and was elected a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in recognition of her work on improving economic and social measurement.

“NORC at the University of Chicago has a strong track record in providing high-quality data and analysis on issues of social importance, and I look forward to being able to contribute to those efforts,” said Ruggles. “I will continue to work on issues relating to poverty, and will also conduct research on the accuracy and appropriateness of measures used to compute cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) for Social Security and other programs. I believe that good data, accurate and appropriate statistical measures, and effective, high-quality dissemination of data and research findings are all crucial to good policy decisions.”

“Patricia Ruggles’ deep expertise studying poverty and improving the methods leading researchers employ to understand this problem is invaluable to our organization and her field,” said Dan Gaylin, Executive Vice President, Research Programs at NORC. “NORC is fortunate to have her join our staff.”

Ruggles has held two National Science Foundation (NSF)/American Statistical Association fellowships at the Bureau of the Census, both focused on improving data quality and usability. The analyses of poverty-related issues that came out of her first NSF fellowship contributed to her book, Drawing the Line, which analyzed the impacts of alternative poverty measures. Ruggles’ second NSF fellowship at the U.S. Census Bureau focused on improving welfare program data in the Survey of Income and Program Participation, and led to her well-known work with economist Rebecca Blank on the dynamics of welfare participation.

“We are excited to add an economist of Patricia Ruggles’ experience and expertise to our department,” said Chet Bowie, Senior Vice President and Director of the Economics, Labor, and Population studies department at NORC. “Here at NORC, she will continue her work on improving the quality of the data and measures policymakers use to make critical decisions on social policy.”

From 1996 to 2001, Ruggles was the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Services Policy and the Chief Economist for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In that role she was responsible for an annual budget of about $20 million to oversee research on issues relating to income, poverty, and human services programs. Both before and after her employment at HHS, Ruggles served on the staff of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, from which she retired as Staff Director in 2003. She was also a visiting professor at Georgetown University in 2003-2004.

Source:  NORC press release.

Image Source:  Richard and Nancy Ruggles’ Tourist Card for Brazil dated 30 December 1962.

Categories
Economists Harvard History of Economics Northwestern

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. alumnus Homer Bews Vanderblue, 1915

 

Homer Bews Vanderblue (Harvard Ph.D., 1915) won his academic spurs for work on the economics of railroads. He went on to become the Dean of the School of Commerce at Northwestern. Before leaving for Northwestern in 1939 he donated his personal collection of Adam Smith materials to the Harvard Business School’s Baker Library.

_______________________

Homer Bews Vanderblue’s Ph.D. exams at Harvard

General Examination in Economics, Monday, May 11, 1914.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Turner, Sprague, Day, and Dr. Copeland.
Academic History: Northwestern University, 1907-12; Harvard Graduate School, 1912—. A.B., Northwestern, 1911; A.M. ibid., 1912. Assistant in Economics, Harvard, 1913—.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Statistics. 3. History of American Institutions since 1789. 4. Economic History since 1750. 5. Commercial Organization. 6. Transportation.
Special Subject: Transportation.
Thesis Subject: “Railroad Valuation.” (With Professor F. W. Taussig and Mr. E. J. Rich.)

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examinations for the Ph.D. (HUC 7000.70), Folder “Examinations for the Ph.D., 1913-14”.

Note:  Thesis published as Railroad Valuation, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1917.  It was awarded second prize ($500) in Class A of the Hart, Schaffner & Marx competition.

_______________________

From the 1941 Harvard Business School Yearbook

Homer Bews Vanderblue
Honorary Curator of Early Economic Literature

Degrees: A.B., 1911; A.M., 1912, Northwestern University; Ph.D., 1915 Harvard University.

History in Brief: Instructor in Economics, Harvard College, 1914-15; Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor of Transportation, Northwestern University, 1915-22; Research Director, Denver Civic and Commercial Association, 1920-21; Economist and Director, Harvard University Committee on Economic Research, 1922-29; Professor of Business Economics, 1922-29; Vice President, Tri-Continental Corporation, New York City, 1929-37; Member, Library Committee, College of William and Mary since 1936; Member, Committee on Economic Bibliography, British Academy since 1937; Honorary Curator of Early Economic Literature since 1936; Dean of College of Commerce, Northwestern University since 1939.

Source: Harvard University, The Harvard Business School Yearbook, 1941, page 37.

_______________________

Death notice from Harvard College President’s Annual Report

Homer Bews Vanderblue, Honorary Curator of Early Economic Literature in the Baker Library, died on July 12, 1952, in his sixty-fourth year. His first appointment at the University was as Assistant in Economics and Proctor in 1913-14. He became Instructor in Economics in 1914-15. Until 1922, he taught at Northwestern University as Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and Professor of Transportation. From 1922 until his resignation in 1929, he was Professor of Business Economics, and from 1936 until his death he filled the post of Honorary Curator of Early Economic Literature in the Baker Library. He returned to Northwestern as Professor of Business Economics and Dean of the School of Commerce (1939-49).

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and reports of departments, 1951-52, pp. 49-50.

_______________________

Vanderblue as Head of Northwestern’s School of Commerce

Homer Vanderblue becomes the fifth dean of the School of Commerce. Vanderblue proves to be a successful academic and administrative leader, keeping the school functioning during the resource shortages associated with World War II when most business schools curtailed their operations or suspended instruction entirely.

Under Dean Vanderblue, the school shifts away from technical specialization toward a broader managerial education. To accomplish this shift—which would take years to complete—Vanderblue introduces the “rotating chairs” system for academic department heads, thus sidestepping department rigidity. He recruits faculty sympathetic to his goals and ideals of “liberal business education.”

Vanderblue also works to bridge the fiscal gap between what the school generates for the university and what it earns to meet its expenses. Among other things, Vanderblue proposes raising faculty salaries, which had declined during the depression, and constructing new buildings in Evanston and Chicago. Vanderblue admits that to retain the best faculty, he has to draw upon loyalty to Northwestern by “playing on the ‘I love Evanston’ key” to retain the best senior professors, something he is able to do in many cases.

Dean Vanderblue retires due to ill health in 1949.

 

Source: Northwestern University, Webpage: “Kellogg School History: 1938-1947.”

_______________________

Adam Smith—Vanderblue Collection

Baker Library has brought together one of the most comprehensive collections of the works of Adam Smith in the world, with a special focus on The Wealth of Nations. This collection contains virtually all published editions in English of this work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and Essays on Philosophical Subjects as well as translations into Chinese, French, Russian, and numerous other languages. Further, it holds many of Smith’s other published materials, manuscript letters, and several volumes from Smith’s own library. Harvard Business School Professor Homer B. Vanderblue donated the collection in 1939.

Source: https://www.library.hbs.edu/Find/Collections-Archives/Special-Collections/Collections/European-Economic-History-Philosophy-Kress-Collection/Adam-Smith-Vanderblue-Collection

Image Source: Homer Bews Vanderblue from the 1946 volume of the Northwestern University yearbook Syllabus. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.