Paul Samuelson was at the heart of a revolution in economics. He was "the foremost academic economist of the 20th century," according to the New York Times, and the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Economics. His work transformed the field of economics and helped give it the theoretical and mathematic rigor that increased its influence in business and policy making.In Founder of Modern Economics, Roger E. Backhouse
explores the central importance of Samuelson's personality and social networks to understanding his intellectual development. This is the first of two volumes covering Samuelson's extended and productive life and career.
This volume surveys Samuelson's early years growing up in the Midwest to his experiences at the University of Chicago and Harvard University, where leading scholars in economics and other disciplines stimulated and rewarded his curiosity. His thinking was influenced by the natural sciences and he understood that a critical, scientific approach increased insights into important social and economic questions. He realized that these questions could not be answered through rhetorical debate but
required rigor. His "eureka" moment came, he said, when "a good fairy whispered to me that math was a skeleton key to solve age old problems in economics."Backhouse traces
Samuelson's thinking from his early days to the publication of his groundbreaking book Foundations of Economic Analysis and Economics: An Introductory Analysis, which influenced generations of students. His work set the stage for economics to become a more cohesive and coherent discipline, based on mathematical techniques that provided surprising insights into many important topics, from business cycles to wage and unemployment rates, and from how competition influences trade
to how tax rates affects tax collection. Founder of Modern Economics is a profound contribution to understanding how modern economics developed and the thinking of a revolutionary thinker.
Paul Samuelson was at the heart of a revolution in economics. He was "the foremost academic economist of the 20th century," according to the New York Times, and the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Economics. His work transformed the field of economics and helped give it the theoretical and mathematic rigor that increased its influence in business and policy making.In Founder of Modern Economics, Roger E. Backhouse
explores the central importance of Samuelson's personality and social networks to understanding his intellectual development. This is the first of two volumes covering Samuelson's extended and productive life and career.
This volume surveys Samuelson's early years growing up in the Midwest to his experiences at the University of Chicago and Harvard University, where leading scholars in economics and other disciplines stimulated and rewarded his curiosity. His thinking was influenced by the natural sciences and he understood that a critical, scientific approach increased insights into important social and economic questions. He realized that these questions could not be answered through rhetorical debate but
required rigor. His "eureka" moment came, he said, when "a good fairy whispered to me that math was a skeleton key to solve age old problems in economics."Backhouse traces
Samuelson's thinking from his early days to the publication of his groundbreaking book Foundations of Economic Analysis and Economics: An Introductory Analysis, which influenced generations of students. His work set the stage for economics to become a more cohesive and coherent discipline, based on mathematical techniques that provided surprising insights into many important topics, from business cycles to wage and unemployment rates, and from how competition influences trade
to how tax rates affects tax collection. Founder of Modern Economics is a profound contribution to understanding how modern economics developed and the thinking of a revolutionary thinker.
Contents
List of Figures
Preface
Part I - The Early Years, 1915-35
1. Childhood
2. The University of Chicago, 1932
3. Natural and social sciences, 1932-3
4. Social scientist to mathematical economist, 1933-4
5: Economics at Chicago, 1932-5
PART II - The Harvard Years, 1935-40
6. First Term at Harvard, Autumn 1935
7. Joseph Alois Schumpeter
8. Edwin Bidwell Wilson
9. Making Connections
10. Simplifying Economic Theory
11. Collaboration
12. Alvin Harvey Hansen
13. Hansen's Disciple
14. The Observational Significance of Economic Theory
15. Leaving Harvard
PART III - MIT, War, Foundations and the Textbook, 1940-8
16. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology
17. Statistics
18. Developing the New Economics, I: Theory, 1940-3
19. Hansen and the National Resources Planning Board, 1941-3
20. Developing the New Economics, II: Policy, 1942-3
21. Scientists and Science Policy, 1944-5
22. Foundations of Economic Analysis, 1940-7
23. Postwar Economic Policy, 1944-7
24. Keynes and Keynesian economics
25. Drafting the Textbook, 1945
26. Controversy Over the Textbook, 1947-8
27. Economics, the First Edition, 1948
28. Commitment to MIT
29. Conclusions
List of Abbreviations
References
Endnote
Roger E. Backhouse is Professor of the History and Philosophy of Economics, at the University of Birmingham.
"Paul Samuelson changed economics and in the process changed the
economies and societies we inhabit. This important book tells his
story and in the process sheds important new light on the history
of our field and our times." - Lawrence H. Summers, President
Emeritus and Charles W. Eliot University Professor of Harvard
University
"It has been well said that Paul A. Samuelson was the last great
general economist-never again will any one person make such
foundational contributions to so many distinct areas of economics.
His profound theoretical contributions over nearly seven decades of
published research have been ecumenical and his ramified influence
on the whole of economics has led economists in just about every
branch of economics to claim him as one of their own. Here we have
an
exploration of the role of personality and social networks in
understanding the remarkable intellectual development of this
singularly remarkable economist. To the reader, Bon Appetit!" -
Robert C.
Merton, School of Management Distinguished Professor of Finance,
MIT and University Professor Emeritus, Harvard University; Nobel
Prize in Economic Science, 1997
"America's greatest modern economist transformed economic analysis.
The distinguished historian Roger Backhouse has used the newly
available Samuelson archives, and much more, to construct this
informative and lively intellectual biography to show just how that
transformation occurred and Samuelson's role in it. This volume's
scholarship will define Samuelson's contributions for a
generation." - E. Roy Weintraub, Duke University, author of How
Economics
Became a Mathematical Science
"Like Harrod in his Life of Keynes, Backhouse provides us with an
invaluable first full treatment of the life and work of the
economist Paul Samuelson, a key transitional figure between prewar
and postwar economics. Choosing as his intellectual fathers both
Edwin B. Wilson and Alvin Hansen, Samuelson used his third "sacred
decade" of intellectual creativity to produce two very different
books, Foundations and Economics, so setting the stage for a
life of work in the space between them." - Perry Mehrling,
Professor of Economics, Barnard College, Columbia University
"Founder of Modern Economics: Paul A. Samuelson Volume 1: Becoming
Samuelson, 1915-1948, is an extraordinary achievement. Master
historian of thought Roger Backhouse, in producing the definitive
study of the development of one of the greatest minds in the
history of economics, not only enriches our understanding of the
process of the evolution of social science knowledge, but provides
new perspectives on the nature of economic theory. This is a
wonderful book." - Steven Durlauf, Kenneth J. Arrow Professor of
Economics, University of Wisconsin
"Roger Backhouse's Founder of Modern Economics: Paul Samuelson, was
a surprisingly riveting read. It is nothing less than an
intellectual history of the making of modern economics." --Indian
Express
Co-Winner of the 2018 Joseph J. Spengler Best Book Prize, History
of Economics Society
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