Thumbing through the economics department correspondence at the Harvard archives, I came across a file for the mathematics Ph.D., Julian Laurence Holley, who had tried both insurance and finance, but found himself returning to Harvard for graduate work in economics. Ultimately he ended up doing applied operations research for the Pentagon with a published trail in mathematical economics consisting of two short pieces, one of which was published in Econometrica, “Note on the Inversion of the Leontief Matrix”. I pieced together his time-line for this post. Analogous to not all heroes wearing capes, we have here an example that demonstrates not all serious economic researchers bear Ph.D.’s in economics.
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Julian Laurence Holley
Born: 25 Aug 1898 in Bristol, Connecticut.
1917-18. Attended Williams College.
WWI Service in the Harvard Naval Unit..
1921. A.B. (specialized in physics and mathematics), Harvard. Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude, Highest Honors in Mathematics.
1922. A.M. (Mathematics), Harvard.
1924. Ph.D. (Mathematics), Harvard. Thesis: Linear spaces and their fixed points.
1924-25. Benjamin Peirce Instructor of Mathematics, Harvard.
1925-27. Business Administration course at the Bryant & Stratton Commercial School of Boston (emphasis on accounting). First year work at the Northeastern University Evening Law School. Several special courses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
1927-28. Six months working in the actuarial department at the Aetna Life Insurance Company (Hartford, Connecticut). Passed the first two actuarial examinations.
1928-29 [ca.]. Temporary job in personnel work.
1929-1936. Investment Counsel on the research staff of Loomis, Sayles & Company at their Boston headquarters. Organized and ran the department of bank and insurance stocks and supervised work on investment trust issues.
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1936-37 |
Economics 101 | Economic Theory |
A |
| Economics 141 | Principles of Money and Banking |
B+ |
|
| Economics 121a1 | Theory of Economic Statistics, I |
½ A |
|
| Economics 121b2 | Theory of Economic Statistics, II |
½ A- |
|
|
1937-38 |
Economics 116 | Price Theory and Price Analysis |
A+ |
| Economics 103a1 | Trends in Modern Economic Theory |
½ A+ |
|
| Economics 1152 | Selected Problems in Advanced Economic Theory |
½ A |
1937-39. Instructor and Tutor in Economics, Harvard, in elementary economics (Economics A) and assisted in accounting (Economics 26b).
1940. Joined the staff of the War Production Board. [WWII Draft registration: still employed at War Production Board as of February 1942].
Revenue estimator for the U.S. Treasury.
1946. Married Helen Amelia Lewis (b. 14 June 1900; d. 14 January 2002) in D.C. 1 January 1946. No children. Her A.B. was from Mount Holyoke College, 1922. M.Ed., 1941 Boston University.
1950 Census. Employed as Mathematician for the U.S. Department of the Air Force. [wife employed as economist with the Internal Revenue Service]
1951. [His affiliation: U.S. Air Force]. “Note on the Inversion of the Leontief Matrix” in Econometrica, Vol. 19, Issue 3, pp. 317-320. [Perhaps he was with Project SCOOP (Scientific Computation of Optima Programs) established 1947-48, a Pentagon -based U.S. Air Force research program]
1954. [His affiliation: Melpar, Inc., subsidiary of Westinghouse Air Brake Company, Alexandria Virginia] “Letter to the Editor—Waiting Line Subject to Priorities” in Journal of the Operations Research Society of America. Vol. 2(3), pp. 341-343.
Final position: Senior mathematician and member of the principal staff of the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University.
Died: 22 Feb 1959
Sources: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11) Box 16, Folder “Holley, Julian Laurence”.
Obituaries: Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 23 February 1959, p. 16; Boston Globe, 23 February 1959, p. 38.
Image Source: Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 23 February 1959, p. 16.