The economics department of Columbia University could rightly boast of its bumper crop of faculty appointments for the 1947-48 academic year. I’ll be surprised if I ever come across a press release announcing a correspondingly large wave of resignations anywhere. However, it is not uncommon for members of rival departments to comment on the movement of colleagues from one department to another as the result of such movement raising the average in both departments. But no doubt, quite a proud moment for economics at Columbia.
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Columbia University Press Release
August 28, 1947
Public Information Office
Columbia University
Morningside Heights
New York 27, N.Y.
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Robert Harron, Director
Appointments of several noted scholars in the field of economics, effective with the new academic year, were announced yesterday (Wednesday) by Dr. Frank D. Fackenthal, acting president of Columbia University.
Dr. George Joseph Stigler, who has been a member of the faculty of Brown University, has been appointed professor of economics. Dr. Stigler was graduated from the University of Washington in 1931, and received advanced degrees from Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. He has held research positions with The National Resources Committee and the National Bureau of Economic Research, and is the author of “Production and Distribution Theories: the Theory of Price.” [sic, actually two different books: Production and Distribution Theories, The Formative Period (1941) and The Theory of Price (Revised 1952)]
Dr. Karl Polanyi, former lecturer at Oxford, the University of London, and Bennington College, has been named as visiting professor of economics. Dr. Polanyi, who was born in Vienna and was from 1924 to 1934 on the staff of the “Oesterreichische Volkswirt”, then a leading financial weekly, has been a naturalized British citizen since 1940. In 1944 he wrote “The Great Transformation, [1944]” which attracted international attention. It is an analysis of free enterprise capitalism as it affects western society. He was at Columbia during the recent Spring Session.
Three who were visiting professors during the past year have accepted permanent status. They are Albert Gailord Hart, visiting professor of economics; Ragnar Nurkse, visiting professor of international economics, and Abram Bergson, visiting associate professor of economics.
Professor Hart was educated at Harvard and the University of Chicago, has taught at Iowa State and the University of Chicago, and has served as research economist for the Committee for Economic Development. He is the author of “Anticipations, Uncertainty, and Dynamic Planning,” “Debts and Recovery, 1929-1937,” “The Social Framework of the American Economy” (with J.R. Hicks) and, with collaborators, “Paying for Defense.”
Professor Nurkse, a native of Estonia, worked with the economic and financial section of the League of Nations and has had major responsibility for a number of its publications, notably the volume, “International Currency Experience.” He holds an advanced degree from the University of Edinburgh. His work will be largely in the School of International Affairs.
Professor Bergson, who came to Columbia a year ago as a member of the Russian Institute staff, was trained at Johns Hopkins and Harvard, and has taught at the University of Texas. During the war he served with the office of Strategic Services as Chief of the Economic Subdivision, U.S.S.R. Division. He was also consultant on Russian financial questions to the Department of State and a member of the U.S. Reparations Delegations to the Moscow and Potsdam conferences.
Newly appointed to the department, whose executive officer is Professor Carter Goodrich, are Lawrence Abbott, a graduate of Harvard who has taught at Hotchkiss School, and Aaron W. Warner, former instructor in labor law at the University of Denver. Mr. Abbott will be an instructor in Columbia College. Mr. Warner will be in charge of economics in the School of General Studies.
Source: Columbia University Archives. Historical Subject Files, Series I: Academics and Research, Box 23, Folder 5 “Economics, Dept. of, 1915—”.
Image Source: George Stigler (left) at the 1947 Mt. Pelerin Society meeting from the Milton Friedman Papers at the Hoover Institution Archives. Karl Polanyi (1947) (right) picture found multiple times on webpages without attribution.