William Baumol

William Baumol
William Jack Baumol (February 26, 1922 – May 4, 2017) was an American economist. He was a professor of economics at New York University, Academic Director of the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. He was a prolific author of more than eighty books and several hundred journal articles. He is the namesake of the Baumol effect.
Baumol wrote extensively about labor market and other economic factors that affect the economy. He also made significant contributions to the theory of entrepreneurship and the history of economic thought. He is among the most influential economists in the world according to IDEAS/RePEc. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1971, the American Philosophical Society in 1977, and the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1987.
Baumol was considered a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Economics for 2003,
and Thomson Reuters cited him as a potential recipient in 2014, but he died without receiving the prize.
Early life
Baumol was born in the South Bronx. His parents, Solomon and Lillian, were both immigrants from Eastern Europe.
Baumol studied at the City College of New York and was awarded his bachelor's degree in 1942. After college, he served in the U.S. Army in World War II and later worked for the Department of Agriculture as an economist.
Education
He was initially denied entry to the doctoral studies at the London School of Economics and was instead admitted to the Master's program. After witnessing his debating skills at Lord Lionel Robbins' seminars, he was within weeks switched to the doctoral program and also admitted to the faculty as an Assistant Lecturer.
Teaching
While a professor at Princeton University he supervised some graduate students who would eventually become very well-known economists, including Burton Malkiel, William G. Bowen, and Harold Tafler Shapiro.
Research
Among his better-known contributions are the theory of contestable markets, the Baumol-Tobin model of transactions demand for money, Baumol's cost disease, which discusses the rising costs associated with service industries, Baumol's sales revenue maximization model and Pigou taxes. His research on environmental economics recognized the fundamental role of non-convexities in causing market failures.
William Baumol also contributed to the transformation of the field of finance, and published contributions to the areas of efficiency of capital markets, portfolio theory, and capital budgeting.
Entrepreneurship
The place of the disruptive innovations and innovative entrepreneurs in traditional economic theory (which describes many efficiency-based ratios assuming uniform outputs) presents theoretic quandaries. Baumol contributed greatly to this area of economic theory. The 2006 Annual Meetings of the American Economic Association held a special session in his name, and honoring his many years of work in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation, where 12 papers on entrepreneurship were presented.
The Baumol Research Centre for Entrepreneurship Studies at Zhejiang Gongshang University is named after William Baumol.
In 2003, Baumol received the Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research "[f]or his persistent effort to give the entrepreneur a key role in mainstream economic theory, for his theoretical and empirical studies of the nature of entrepreneurship, and for his analysis of the importance of institutions and incentives for the allocation of entrepreneurship."
The British news magazine, The Economist published an article about William Baumol and his lifelong work to develop a place in economic theory for the entrepreneur (March 11, 2006, pp 68), much of which owes its genesis to Joseph Schumpeter. They note that traditional microeconomic theory normally holds a place for 'prices' and 'firms' but not for that (seemingly) important engine of innovation, the entrepreneur. Baumol is given credit for helping to remedy this shortcoming: "Thanks to Mr. Baumol's own painstaking efforts, economists now have a bit more room for entrepreneurs in their theories."
William Baumol's book, The Microtheory of Innovative Entrepreneurship is the first formal theoretical analysis of the role of innovative entrepreneurs.
Textbooks
Baumol wrote several textbooks in economics, including an introductory textbook with Alan Blinder titled Macroeconomics: Principles and Policy. His economics textbook on operations research was internationally well-received:
In the 1960s and 1970s, nearly every economics department offered a course in operations research methods in economics, and the usual textbook used was Economic Theory and Operations Analysis by W. J. Baumol. An entire generation of economics students was familiar with this book ....
Professional and philanthropic interests
Baumol was a trustee of Economists for Peace and Security. Baumol was known for his interests in the economics of art, including the economics of the performing arts.
Death
Baumol died on May 4, 2017, at the age of 95.
Major publications
"Community Indifference", 1946, RES
"A Community Indifference Map: A construction", 1949, RES.
"A Formalization of Mr. Harrod's Model", 1949, EJ.
"The Analogy between Producer and Consumer Equilibrium Analysis", with Helen Makower, 1950, Economica.
Economic Dynamics, with R. Turvey, 1951.
"The Transaction Demand for Cash: An inventory-theoretic approach", 1952, QJE.
"The Classical Monetary Theory: The outcome of the discussion", with G.S. Becker, 1952, Economica.
Welfare Economics and the Theory of the State, 1952.
"Firms with Limited Money Capital", 1953, Kyklos.
Economic Processes and Policies, with L.V. Chandler, 1954.
"More on the Multiplier Effect of a Balanced Budget", with M.H. Peston, 1955, AER.
"Acceleration without Magnification", 1956, AER.
"Variety in Retailing", with E.A. Ide, 1956 Management Science.
"Speculation, Profitability and Stability", 1957, REStat.
"Activity Analysis in One Lesson", 1958, AER.
"On the Theory of Oligopoly", 1958, Economica.
"Topology of Second Order Linear Difference Equations with Constant Coefficients", 1958, Econometrica.
"The Cardinal Utility which is Ordinal", 1958, EJ.
Business Behavior, Value and Growth, 1959.
"Integer Programming and Pricing", with R.E. Gomory, 1960, Econometrica.
Economic Theory and Operations Analysis, 1961.
"What Can Economic Theory Contribute to Managerial Economics?", 1961, AER.
"Pitfalls in Contracyclical Policies: Some tools and results", 1961, REStat.
"The Theory of Expansion of the Firm", 1962, AER.
"Stocks, Flows and Monetary Theory", 1962, QJE.
"An Expected Gain-Confidence Limit Criterion for Portfolio Selection", 1963, Management Science.
"Rules of Thumb and Optimally Imperfect Decisions", with R. E. Quandt, 1964, American Economic Review, 54, p. 23–46
"Decomposition, Pricing for Decentralization and External Economics", with T.Fabian, 1964, Management Science.
"On the Performing Arts: the anatomy of their economic problems", with W.G. Bowen, 1965, AER.
"Investment and Discount Rates Under Capital Rationing", with R.E.Quandt, 1965, EJ.
"Informed Judgement, Rigorous Theory and Public Policy", 1965, Southern EJ.
The Stock Market and Economic Efficiency, 1965.
Performing Arts: the economic dilemma, 1966.
"The Ricardo Effect in Point-Input, Point-Output Case", 1966, Essays in Mathematical Economics in Honor of Oskar Morgenstern.
"Macroeconomics of Unbalanced Growth: The anatomy of urban crisis", 1967, AER.
"Calculation of Optimal Product and Retailer Characteristics", 1967, JPE.
"The Firm's Optimal Debt-Equity Combination and the Cost of Capital", with B.G. Malkiel, 1967, QJE.
"Error Produced by Linearization in Mathematical Programming", with R. Bushnell, 1967, Econometrica.
"The Dual of Nonlinear Programming and its Economic Interpretation", with M.L.Balinski, 1968, RES.
"Entrepreneurship in Economic Theory", 1968, May, American Economic Review
"On the Social Rate of Discount", 1968, AER.
"On the Discount Rate for Public Projects", 1969, Analysis and Evaluation of Public Expenditures.
"Input Choices and Rate-of-Return Regulation: An overview of the discussion", with A.K.Klevorick, 1970, Bell JE.
"Optimal Departures from Marginal Cost Pricing", with D.F. Bradford, 1970, AER.
"The Economics of Athenian Drama", 1971, QJE.
Environmental protection, International Spillovers and Trade, 1971.
"On the Economics of the Theatre in Renaissance London" with Mary Oates, 1972, Swedish JE.
"The Dynamics of Urban Problems and its Policy Implications", 1972, in Preston and Corry, editors, Essays in Honor of Lord Robbins.
"Taxation and the Control of Externalities", 1972, AER.
"Detrimental Externalities and Non-Convexity of the Production Set", with D.F. Bradford, 1972, Economica.
"The Transformation of Values: What Marx 'Really' Meant", 1974, JEL.
The Theory of Environmental Policy, with W.E.Oates, 1975.
Economics, Environmental Policy and Quality of Life, with W.E.Oates and S.A. Batey Blackman 1979.
Contestable Markets and the Theory of Industry Structure, with J.C. Panzar and R.D. Wilig, 1982
"Contestable Markets: An Uprising in the Theory of Industry Structure", 1982, "AER".
Microtheory: Applications and origins, 1986
Superfairness: Application and theory, with D. Fischer, 1986
"The Optimal Cash Balance Proposition: Maurice Allais' Priority", with J. Tobin, 1989, JEL
Productivity and American Leadership: The long view, with S.A. Batey Blackman and E.N. Wolff, 1989.
Entrepreneurship: Productive, Unproductive and Destructive, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 98(3), pp. 893–921, 1990
Perfect Markets and Easy Virtue: Business ethics and the invisible hand, with S.A. Batey Blackman, 1992
Entrepreneurship, Management and the Structure of Profit, 1993.
The Free Market Innovation Machine: Analyzing the Growth Miracle of Capitalism, 2002.
Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity, co-authored with Robert Litan and Carl J. Schramm, 2007
The Cost Disease: Why Computers get Cheaper and Health Care Doesn't, 2012 https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300198157/cost-disease
Positions and awards
William Baumol was President of the American Economic Association for 1981.
1953 Fellow, Econometric Society
1957–58 Guggenheim Fellow
1960–70 Trustee, Rider College
1965 Honorary LL.D, Rider College (Trustee Emeritus)
1965–66 Ford Faculty Fellowship
1970 Honorary Fellow, London School of Economics
1971 Honorary Doctorate, Stockholm School of Economics
1973 Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, Knox College
1973 Honorary Doctorate, University of Basel
1975 John R. Commons Award, Omicron Delta Epsilon
1975 Townsend Harris Medal, Alumni Association of the City College of New York
1982 Distinguished Fellow, American Economic Association
1984 Distinguished Member, Economic Association of Puerto Rico
1986 Winner, Assoc. of American Publishers Award for Best Book in Business, Management and Economics, Superfairness: Applications and Theory
1987 Recipient, Frank E. Seidman Distinguished Award in Political Economy
1988 Joseph Douglas Green 1895 Professor of Economics, Princeton University
1989 Winner, Assoc. of Am. Publishers Annual Awards for Excellence in Publishing, Honorable Mention in Social Sciences, Productivity and American Leadership: The Long View
1992 Recipient, First Senior Scholar in the Arts and Sciences Award, New York University
1996 Honorary Degree, University of Limburg, Maastricht, Netherlands
1996 Honorary Professorship, University of Belgrano, Buenos Aires, Argentina
1999, Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, Princeton University
2003 Winner of the Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research, the Swedish Entrepreneurship Forum (Entreprenörskapsforum), the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN) and the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth (Tillväxtverket), Stockholm, Sweden
See also
Baumol–Tobin model
Baumol's cost disease
References
External links
Baumol home page
Entrepreneurship: Productive, Unproductive, and Destructive
The discrimination of blacks has increased the number of jazz composers – An interview with Baumol published in the Czech weekly Respekt and daily Blisty in 2003
1922 births
2017 deaths
Innovation economists
Writers from New York City
Economists from New York (state)
20th-century American economists
21st-century American economists
Environmental economists
Historians of economic thought
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Fellows of the Econometric Society
Alumni of the London School of Economics
Cultural economists
Cultural economics
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Microeconomists
New York University faculty
Neo-Keynesian economists
Presidents of the American Economic Association
Distinguished Fellows of the American Economic Association
United States Army personnel of World War II
Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy
Members of the American Philosophical Society