Nothing marks the sartorial elegance of the professional economist more than the wearing of a bowtie outside the confines of a Nobel Prize Ceremony or other formal occasion. This page will be irregularly updated with pictures of economists in the wild who have been seen sporting that neck garb of champions. Pride of place goes of course to the Economics in the Rear-View Mirror’s poster wunderkind of bowties, Paul A. Samuelson.
The featured image displayed above (#52 Samuel L. Myers, Sr.)changes and will always be the most recent addition to the collection.
On a more serious note, visitors to this collection are welcome to view other artifacts digitized and curated at Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.
#1. Paul A. Samuelson
Source: Capture of the photos page from the Paul Samuelson memorial webpages at the MIT economics department (date of Wayback Machine capture May 22, 2011)
#2. Lawrence R. Klein
Source: Lawrence R. Klein memorial page Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, . (Wayback Machine capture of February 20, 2019). Nominated by Erich Pinzón-Fuchs.
#3. Kenneth J. Arrow
Source: Photo from the Kenneth J. Arrow (emeritus) webpage at the Stanford economics department (February 27, 2009 capture by the Wayback Machine).
#4. Angus Deaton
Source: Bengt Nyman’s photo taken in Stockholm in December 2015. Licensed under the Creative Commons Atribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at Wikimedia.
#5. John Stuart Mill
Source: Wikimedia Commons. John Stuart Mill by London Stereoscopic Company.
#6. William Stanley Jevons
Source: University of Manchester Library. Rylands Collection, Jevons Family Papers. Jevons Album. (Image Number JRL023256tr).
Note: The photograph comes from a collection of photographs of Australia, taken or compiled by William Stanley Jevons during the 1850s. Between 1854-1859 Jevons was employed as assayer at the Sydney mint and also carried out detailed social surveys of the city’s slums.
#7. John T. Dunlop
Source: Professor John T. Dunlop in the Harvard College Classbook 1951.
#8. Abba P. Lerner
Source: Abba P. Lerner at Roosevelt College with his Phillips MONIAC. “This Computer from 1949 Runs on Water” by Marissa Fesssenden in Smithsonian.com November 28, 2014.
#9. John Kenneth Galbraith
Source: John Kenneth Galbraith’s faculty picture in Harvard College Classbook 1952.
#10. Wolfgang Stolper
Source: Wolfgang F. Stolper entry at the University of Michigan Faculty History website.
#11. Fritz Machlup
Source: Johns Hopkins University yearbook, Hullabaloo 1957, p. 28.
#12. Timothy A. Smiddy (College at Cork, Ireland)
Source: Archived Professor Timothy A. Smiddy webpage at the Collins 22 Society Website. Smiddy, who also served as first Irish ambassador to the USA, was nominated for this page by his great-grandson, Ronan Lyons, economics professor at Trinity College Dublin.
#13. Robert V. Roosa
Source: Journal of Finance, May 1969. Robert V. Roosa was a 1942 economics Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Served as a vice-president at the New York Fed and as undersecretary in the U.S. Treasury Department. Nominated for the collection by Juan Acosta.
#14. E. Cary Brown
Source: MIT Museum Biographical File. Edgar Cary Brown. Faculty of Economics and Social Science 1947; Department Head 1965-.
#15. Francis M. Bator
Source: MIT Museum Biographical File. Francis M. Bator.
See also: American Academy of Arts & Sciences, “In Memoriam: Francis M. Bator” by Graham T. A. Allison, Jr. Summer 2018 Bulletin.
#16. Edward Hastings Chamberlin
Source: Edward Hastings Chamberlin faculty photo from Harvard Classbook 1939.
#17. Ludwig von Mises.
Source: “The Economic Theory of Ludwig von Mises” by Dr. Joseph T. Salerno at the Mises Institute webpage “brewminate”, October 30, 2017.
#18. Eugen Ritter von Böhm-Bawerk
Source: Portrait of Böhm-Bawerk at the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek record.
#19. Gerard Debreu
Source: Gerard Debreu in 1950 from his Berkeley obituary. UCBerkeley News. Press Release 5 January 2005.
#20 Friedrich August von Hayek
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8l47ilD0II
#21. Henry George
Source: 1865 daguerreotype of Henry George, age 26. From Henry George Wikipedia entry.
#22. Arthur Smithies
“Unlike many economists, Smithies correctly believed that the difference between a good economist and an inferior one is his sense of history,” John Kenneth Galbraith.
Source: From Harvard Class Album 1952.
#23. Allan Meltzer
Source: The Hoover Institution. Remembering Allan Meltzer (Tuesday, May 9, 2017).
#24. Milton Friedman
Source: Time website “The Path of a Powerful Idea“, webpage “The Economists–Milton Friedman“.
#25 E.R.A. Seligman
Image Source: Universities and their Sons, Vol. 2 (1899), pp. 485.
#26. Knut Wicksell
Source: Knut Wicksell in the middle from Stockholmskällan
#27. Walter F. Willcox
(Economics and Statistics, Cornell)
Source: Walter F. Willcox in The Cornellian (1919), p. 128.
#28. Edwin G. Nourse
Source: Portrait of Edwin G. Nourse found at the archived copy of “Former Chairs of the Council of Economic Advisers” at the CEA website of the White House of President Obama.
#29. Ezra Solomon
Source: 1958 photograph of Ezra Solomon, economist and professor of finance. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-07733, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.
#30. Jan Kregel
Source: ISZ | Prof. Jan Kregel: Alternative theories of money | 16.05.2013 by Krytyka Polityczna.
#31. Gustav Stolper
(#10. Wolfgang’s Father)
Source: Thanks to Reinhard Schumacher for this tip. From the Toni and Gustav Stolper Collection 1866-1990 at archive.org.
#32. James Galbraith
(Son of Ken, #9.)
Source: “Noted Economist to Give Inaugural Mayhew Honors Lecture at UT on Oct. 5,” The University of Tennessee Knoxville News (September 30, 2010).
#33. Gardner Ackley
Source: Gardner Ackley webpage at the University of Michigan’s Faculty History Project.
#34. Alexander Gerschenkron
Source: Portrait of Alexander Gerschenkron from American Economic Association in Mark Blaug’s Great Economists since Keynes.
#35. Alvin Hansen
Source: Alvin Hansen in “The Economists”, Fortune December 1950. Copy Found in: University of Chicago Archives. Office of the President, Hutchins Administration Records. Box 73, Folder “Economics Department, 1946-50”.
#36. Henry Carter Adams
Source: Johns Hopkins University Sheridan Libraries, graphic and pictorial collection. Henry Carter Adams (Ph.D., Johns Hopkins, 1878). Photograph by Sam B. Revenaugh (1847-1893), Ann Arbor, Mich.
#37. Royal Meeker
Source: Prof. Royal Meeker, U.S. Commissioner of Labor Statistics, 1914. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.
#38. Oskar Morgenstern (left)
Source: Oskar Morgenstern and John von Neumann. (Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center at Jeremy Norman’s HistoryOfInformation.com website.)
#39. Steven Medema
Source: Duke University, Department of Economics web-announcement (August 15, 2019) of Steven Medema’s appointment as Research Professor and Associate Director of the Center for the History of Political Economy.
#40. Richard Stone
Source: U.K. National Portrait Gallery. Sir (John) Richard Stone by Antony Barrington Brown (1958).
#41. Deepak Lal
Source: Ian Vásquez, “Remembering Deepak Lal”. Cato Institute Website: Cato at Liberty. May 1, 2020.
#42. Mark Perlman
Source: “‘He was the prototype of a professor,’ quick-witted and always wearing a bow-tie, said former student Morgan Marietta” in Mark Perlman’s obituary in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (May 7, 2006).
#43. Rudolf Hilferding
Source: Rudolf Hilferding (1923). Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-00144 from the University and City Library of Cologne, Library Rudolf Hilferding.
#44. Tsuru Shigeto
Source: Eumed.net website “Economistas”. Shigeto Tsuru (1912-2006).
#45. Paul Volcker
Source: 2020 Princeton Reunions Virtual Talk: Honoring the Remarkable Legacy of Paul Volcker ’49.
#46. Bengt-Arne Wickström
Source: Andrássy Universität Budapest, Lehrstuhl für Finanzwissenschaft, Gastprofessor Prof. Dr. Bengt-Arne Wickström.
#47. Edward L. Glaeser
…As part of his efforts to liven up lectures, Glaeser has switched out his traditional ties for bow ties, which can fit within the Zoom camera frame: plain black ones, one with polka dots, some decorated with ice cream cones. Does he have a favorite?
“That would be like having a favorite child or a favorite city — you can’t possibly have a favorite bow tie!” Glaeser says in joking indignation. “I love them all equally.”
Although he dares not divulge the number of ties and bow ties in his possession, Glaeser admits to having “a slight problem with bow tie acquisition.”
Source: “Will Cities Survive the Pandemic? A Conversation with Economics professor Edward L. Glaeser on the future of American cities,” The Harvard Crimson, February 11, 2021.
#48. Zvi Griliches
Source: From a copy of a Brazilian immigration/visa card dated 18 Aug 1959 at the ancestry.com website.
#49. Karl Polanyi
Source: 1938 photo (cropped here) from an interview with Karl Polanyi’s daughter, Kari Polanyi Levitt published in Falter 43a/18, issue: Karl Polanyi: Wiederentdeckung eines Ökonomen. Picture from page 19.
#50. Karl Marx
Source: Bust of Karl Marx by Fritz Cremer (1953/54) in Rosengarten in Neuruppin, Germany. Snapshot by Irwin Collier, August 2022.
#51. Horst Siebert
Source: Photo from the German Federal Government, posted by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, dated November 14, 2001. © Bernd Kuehler. Archived copy at the Wayback Machine.
#52. Samuel L. Myers, Sr.
Source: Ron Baker/Solid Image Photographic Service/Minority Access. From the Washington Post obituary of Samuel L. Myers, Sr. (22 January 2021).