I am working on an AEA calendar of economists
that will be based on George Stigler's calendar
for those of you who remember it. Each of the
economists listed will have a short bio with them
on the calendar. I attach the bios below. If
anyone notices any mistake or problem on a bio,
could you send me an email letting me know.
I recognize that there are many different things
that could be said about each, and I'm not
looking for discussions of nuances, but I would
like to hear from you if anything looks definitely wrong or misleading.
Many thanks,
David Colander
Thorstein Veblen (July 30, 1857 – August 3, 1929)
studied under John Bates Clark as an
undergraduate at Carleton College. As a founder
of the institutional economics movement, he
developed an evolutionary theory of economics
driven by the human instincts of emulation and
predation, and coined the term “conspicuous
consumption.” His writings include Theory of the
Leisure Class (1899), The Engineers and the Price
System (1921), and "Why is Economics Not an
Evolutionary Science?" (1898). When offered the
presidency of the AEA, he declined.
Alfred Marshall (July 26, 1842--July 13, 1924)
was a British economist, whose famous textbook
combined older classical school ideas with
marginalist economics, forming the foundation of
traditional micro economic analysis. He saw
supply and demand as an “engine of analysis” to
be used in conjunction with an intuitive
understanding of the economy. His most important
writing is Principles of Economics (1890) which
went through numerous editions while popularizing
the partial equilibrium supply/demand framework.
Friedrich August von Hayek (May 8, 1899 – March
23, 1992) was an Austrian economist and
philosopher who envisioned the economy as a
complex system. He believed that economic
analysis had to go far beyond analytic models to
be useful, and was an eloquent defender of
laissez-faire capitalism. His writings include
The Road to Serfdom (1944) and Law, Legislation
and Liberty (1973, 1976, and 1979). He was
awarded the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.
Milton Friedman (July 31, 1912 – November 16,
2006) was a University of Chicago economist who
advocated the advantages of free competitive
markets and helped develop monetarism. He was
influential in conceptualizing the permanent
income hypothesis, the natural rate of
unemployment, and positive economics. His
writings include A Monetary History of the United
States (with Anna Schwartz) (1971) and Capitalism
and Freedom (1962). He was awarded the 1951 John
Bates Clark Medal, and the 1976 Nobel Memorial
Prize in Economics. He was president of the AEA in 1967.
Irving Fisher (February 27, 1867 – April 29,
1947) was a Yale mathematical economist who
contributed to the quantity theory of money,
capital theory, interest rate theory, and index
number theory. He promoted the distinction
between real and nominal interest rates, and
developed the concept of money illusion. His
writings include Mathematical Investigations in
the Theory of Value and Prices (1892), The Making
of Index Numbers (1922), and The Theory of
Interest (1930). He was president of the AEA in 1918.
George Joseph Stigler (January 17, 1911 –
December 1, 1991) was a University of Chicago
economist who developed search theory, and avidly
criticized government regulation, arguing that
people use regulation for personal gain rather
than for the general good. His writings include
"Information in the Labor Market" (1962), The
Citizen and the State: Essays on Economic
Regulation (1975), and The Theory of Price
(1942). He was a founder of the Mont Pelerin
Society, and won the 1982 Nobel Memorial Prize in
Economics. He was president of the AEA in 1964.
Richard Theodore Ely (April 13, 1854 – October 4,
1943), a University of Wisconsin economist, was
one of the founders of the American Economic
Association, which was spawned by progressive
American economists who tended to support the
German historical school’s approach to activist
government policy. His writings include Labor
Movement in America (1886) and Monopolies and
Trusts 1900). He was secretary of the AEA from
1885 to 1892, and president from 1900 to 1901.
Joan Robinson (October 31, 1903 – August 5, 1983
) was a British economist who made wide-ranging
and provocative contributions to economic theory.
Her early work was on economic theory and
imperfect competition, but she later wrote about
capital theory, Marxist economics, growth theory
and macroeconomics. Her writings include The
Economics of Imperfect Competition (1933), in
which she coined the term monopsony, and
Accumulation of Capital (1956), which expands Keynesianism into the long-run.
Joseph Schumpeter (February 8, 1883 – January 8,
1950) was a Harvard economist whose work
emphasized the role of entrepreneurship, business
cycles, and economic development. Originally at
the University of Bonn, he was one of many émigré
economists who strengthened and fundamentally
changed the American economics profession. His
writings include the classic Capitalism,
Socialism and Democracy (1942) and History of
Economic Analysis, (published posthumously in
1954, edited by Elisabeth Boody Schumpeter).
John von Neumann (December 28, 1903 – February 8,
1957) was a Princeton mathematician who made
significant contributions to mathematics,
physics, and operations research, as well as to
economics. Together with Oskar Morgenstern, von
Neumann pioneered game theory, which he saw as
the mathematics of social science, developing the
famous minimax strategy and inventing backward
induction. He co-authored, with Oskar
Morgenstern, the classic Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (1944).
Francis Edgeworth (February 8, 1845 – February
13, 1926) was a British mathematical economist
who made significant contributions to
neoclassical economic theory and statistical
work. He introduced indifference curves and of
course contributed to the famous Edgeworth-Bowley
box. He was the founding editor of The Economic
Journal in 1891, and continued as editor for 35
years. In his most famous book, Mathematical
Psychics: An Essay on the Application of
Mathematics to the Moral Sciences (1881), he
developed a precursor to the economic theory of “the core.”
Karl Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) was a
philosopher and political economist who used
classical economic theory to critique capitalism.
He argued that markets alienate individuals from
their true selves, and that capitalists extract
surplus value from human labor. His ideas have
inspired many to advocate for revolutionary
political change aimed at upsetting capitalism
and reducing the gap in wealth enjoyed by the
rich and the poor. His writings include Das
Kapital (1867), Economic and Philosophical
Manuscripts of 1844 (1932), and Manifesto of the
Communist Party (with Friedrick Engles) (1848).
John Maynard Keynes (June 5, 1883 – April 21,
1946) was a British economist whose work during
the Great Depression significantly influenced
government policy toward business cycles, and led
to a separate field of macroeconomics. He
emphasized the complexity and uncertainty
inherent in the aggregate economy, and advocated
a pragmatic rather than dogmatic approach to
policy. Among his major writings are: The
Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919), The
Treatise on Money (1930), and The General Theory
of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936).
David Ricardo (April 18, 1772 – September 11,
1823) systematized classical economics and
introduced formal modeling to economics. He
became interested in economics after reading The
Wealth of Nations at age 27. He was a member of
the British Parliament and an avid opponent of
protectionism. His fundamental contribution to
economics is the theory of comparative advantage,
which he described in On the Principles of
Political Economy and Taxation (1817). Ricardo
also developed the concept of economic rent.
John Stuart Mill (May 20, 1806 – May 8, 1873) was
a British economist who addressed the limits of
the power that can be legitimately exercised by
society over individuals in his treatise On
Liberty (1859). He argued that individuals should
retain liberty unless their actions cause
negative externalities. His Principles of
Political Economy (1848) was the standard text in
economics at Oxford until 1919, when it was
replaced by Marshall’s Principles. While a member
of the British Parliament from 1865 to 1868, Mill
was the first MP to call for giving women the right to vote.
Adam Smith (June 5, 1723 – July 17, 1790]) was a
Scottish economist and philosopher who developed
a theory of moral sentiments, and explained how
rational self-interest and competition lead to
economic prosperity. He wrote The Theory of Moral
Sentiments (1759), in which he first describes
“the invisible hand,” and An Inquiry into the
Nature and Wealth of Nations (1776), where that
invisible hand, rather than their benevolence, is
said to guide the self-interest of “the butcher,
the brewer, or the baker” to serve society’s
broad interests. Smith is also famous for
recognizing the value of the division of labor.
Thomas Malthus (February 13, 1766 – December 23,
1834 was a British economist who argued that
absent checks from misery, vice, or moral
restraint (sexual abstinence), a geometrically
growing population would outstrip an
arithmetically expanding food supply, eventually
leading to catastrophic famine. In later writing,
however, he deviated from such predictions. His
work on population dynamics influenced Darwin and
led to what became known as the Malthusian
Doctrine that predicted decreasing standards of
living. His magnum opus is An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).
Leon Walras (December 16, 1834 - January 5, 1910)
was a French economist whose work contributed to
both the marginalist revolution and the creation
of general equilibrium theory. He developed a
theory of marginal utility three years later, but
independently of William Stanley Jevons and Carl
Menger. His most important work is Elements of
Pure Economics, (1874, 1877), in which he
developed the first comprehensive mathematical
analysis of general economic equilibrium.
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