Economists at Wisconsin - 1892-1992: Four hundred pages, fifty pictures, and full of facts, figures, and cogent observations about your alma mater. While you were in residence here, you probably had no idea of the ebb and flow of ideas and politics in the Department!
Economists at Wisconsin 1982 -1992 organizes the history of the Department from three perspectives. There is a chronological narrative which outlines and details the history, this is then augmented with "raw materials" or original materials including correspondence. The third perspective is provided by using "reflective essays and comments" by current and former faculty members including Arthur Goldberger, Dave Johnson, Jack Barbash, Jeff Williamson, and Glen Cain. Robert Lampman was editor of the book.
This book tells the story of the Department of Economics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, which originated with the arrival in 1892 of Richard T. Ely. John R. Commons, who had been Ely's student at The Johns Hopkins University, came to Wisconsin in 1904 and led the way in linking university experts with the state government in what was identified as the Wisconsin Idea.
Ely and Commons and their followers drew upon the German school of historical economics, the social gospel movement, and the progressive political reformers to develop policy recommendations in support of collective bargaining and welfare-state measures. In spite of these heretical views, which continued as the main theme of the economists at Wisconsin until the late 1950s, the department's graduate program has consistently ranked among the top dozen in the nation and has produced over a thousand Ph.D.s.
The years from 1958 to 1969 brought a rebuilding and expansion of the faculty and a shift in leadership to econometrics. The years since 1969 have been marked by retrenchment and a movement toward mainstream theoretical and mathematical studies.
Each of the several time periods is reviewed in three modes: the first is narrative, the second is a sampling of raw materials (such as lists of courses taught), and third is essays on selected events or issues of the period. A special feature of the book is two extensive appendix tables. One gives biographical information on 477 faculty members and the other lists all recipients of the Ph.D. degree and the titles of their dissertations.
The book indicates the scale and scope of the teaching, research, and public service activities of the faculty, and identifies some of the quarrels and rivalries within the department and with other departments, such as agricultural economics and the School of Business.
The book is properly classified as history of economics as distinguished from the history of economic thought. It is also part of the growing literature on the history of universities.
Robert J. Lampman (1920-1997), the editor of this volume, was a participant-observer of the Department of Economics during much of the period covered in this historical account. He received a B.A. degree with a major in economics from the UW-Madison in 1942, i.e., with fifty remaining of the one hundred years, and he served as a member of the departmental faculty for thirty years.
Essays were written for this volume by the following, all of whom are at the Department of Economics at the UW-Madison except as noted. Robert Baldwin, Jack Barbash, Martin Bronfenbrenner (Duke University), Glen Cain, Arthur Goldberger, Donald Hester, Geraldine Hinkel, David B. Johnson, Jack Ladinsky (Sociology), Clair Morris (U.S. Naval Academy), Julie Nelson (UC-Davis), Lyle Owen (University of Tulsa), Mark Solovy (History), Leonard W. Weiss, and Jeffrey Williamson (Harvard).
This book also includes excerpts from previously published materials by John Bascom (President), Richard T. Ely, Elizabeth Evanson (Institute for Research on Poverty), Guy Orcutt (Yale), John Parrish (Illinois), Selig Perlman, William H. Sewell (Sociology), Leonard Silk (New York Times), James Tobin (Yale), Harold Watts (Columbia), and F. Chandler Young (Vice-Chancellor for Student Affairs).
Date of Publication: May 20, 1993