Gardner Ackley

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Gardner Ackley
Portrait de Gardner Ackley.jpg
United States Ambassador to Italy
In office
April 3, 1968 –August 27, 1969
President Lyndon Johnson
Richard Nixon
Preceded by Fred Reinhardt
Succeeded by Graham Martin
6th Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers
In office
November 16, 1964 –February 15, 1968
President Lyndon Johnson
Preceded by Walter Heller
Succeeded by Art Okun
Personal details
Born(1915-06-30)June 30, 1915
Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.
DiedFebruary 12, 1998(1998-02-12) (aged 82)
Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.
Political party Democratic
Education Western Michigan University (BA)
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (MA, PhD)

Hugh Gardner Ackley (June 30, 1915 – February 12, 1998) was an American economist and diplomat.

Americans citizens, or natives, of the United States of America

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Economist professional in the social science discipline of economics

An economist is a practitioner in the social science discipline of economics.

Diplomat person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization

A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with one or more other states or international organizations. The main functions of diplomats are: representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state; initiation and facilitation of strategic agreements; treaties and conventions; promotion of information; trade and commerce; technology; and friendly relations. Seasoned diplomats of international repute are used in international organizations as well as multinational companies for their experience in management and negotiating skills. Diplomats are members of foreign services and diplomatic corps of various nations of the world.

Ackley served as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers under President John F. Kennedy, and as the Chairman under President Lyndon B. Johnson from 1964 to 1968. He also served as Ambassador to Italy from 1968 to 1969. [1] Ackley was a member of the University of Michigan faculty for 43 years and served as chair of its Economics department. Upon returning to the University following his ambassadorship, he was named the Henry Carter Adams Professor of Political Economy. In 1982 he served as President of the American Economic Association. [2]

Council of Economic Advisers US federal government agency

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John F. Kennedy 35th president of the United States

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy, commonly referred to by his initials JFK, was an American politician and journalist who served as the 35th president of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. He served at the height of the Cold War, and the majority of his presidency dealt with managing relations with the Soviet Union. A member of the Democratic Party, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate prior to becoming president.

Lyndon B. Johnson 36th president of the United States

Lyndon Baines Johnson, often referred to as LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. Formerly the 37th vice president of the United States from 1961 to 1963, he assumed the presidency following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. A Democrat from Texas, Johnson also served as a United States Representative and as the Majority Leader in the United States Senate. Johnson is one of only four people who have served in all four federal elected positions.

Ackley was born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1915, and was raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan where he attended public schools and graduated from Western Michigan University in 1936. He earned a Ph.D from the University of Michigan in 1940, and joined the faculty that year. He served in the U.S. Office of Price Administration and the Office of Strategic Services in Washington, D.C., from 1941 to 1946 and as assistant director of the U.S. Office of Price Stabilization from 1951 to 1952. [3] [4]

Western Michigan University public university located in Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States

Western Michigan University (WMU) is a public research university in Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States. The university was established in 1903 by Dwight B. Waldo. Its enrollment, as of the Fall 2016 semester, was 23,252.

Office of Price Administration

The Office of Price Administration (OPA) was established within the Office for Emergency Management of the United States government by Executive Order 8875 on August 28, 1941. The functions of the OPA were originally to control money and rents after the outbreak of World War II.

Office of Strategic Services United States intelligence agency

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was a wartime intelligence agency of the United States during World War II, and a predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branches of the United States Armed Forces. Other OSS functions included the use of propaganda, subversion, and post-war planning. On December 14, 2016, the organization was collectively honored with a Congressional Gold Medal.

Ackley believed that government had a definite role in fine tuning the economy, using both fiscal and monetary intervention. He warned President Johnson in 1966 that a tax increase was needed to finance the escalation of the war in Vietnam and the increased social welfare spending that Johnson was undertaking. Johnson did not ask for a tax increase, and economists, including Paul Samuelson, believed this was the cause of the inflation of the 1970s. [2]

Paul Samuelson American economist

Paul Anthony Samuelson was an American economist and the first American to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. The Swedish Royal Academies stated, when awarding the prize in 1970, that he "has done more than any other contemporary economist to raise the level of scientific analysis in economic theory". Economic historian Randall E. Parker has called him the "Father of Modern Economics", and The New York Times considered him to be the "foremost academic economist of the 20th century".

Ackley was the author of the popular graduate-level textbook Macroeconomic Theory, which was translated into several languages and remained the standard advanced text during the 1960s and early 1970s. [4] [5] He was awarded a fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1968 and another fellowship from the Ford Foundation. [6]

American Academy of Arts and Sciences United States honorary society and center for independent policy research

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It is devoted to the advancement and study of the key societal, scientific, and intellectual issues of the day.

Ford Foundation private foundation based in New York City

The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the mission of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death of the two founders, the foundation owned 90% of the non-voting shares of the Ford Motor Company. Between 1955 and 1974, the foundation sold its Ford Motor Company holdings and now plays no role in the automobile company. Ahead of the foundation selling its Ford Motor Company holdings, in 1949 Henry Ford II created the Ford Motor Company Fund, a separate corporate foundation which to this day serves as the philanthropic arm of the Ford Motor Company and is not associated with the foundation. For years it was the largest, and one of the most influential foundations in the world, with global reach and special interests in economic empowerment, education, human rights, democracy, the creative arts, and Third World development.

Selected publications

The Journal of Political Economy is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal published by the University of Chicago Press. It covers both theoretical and empirical economics. It was established in 1892 by James Laurence Laughlin.

The Atlantic Institute was an independent, non-governmental institute that promoted economic, political, and cultural relations among NATO alliance members and the international community in general. Based in Paris, France, it was founded in 1961 and closed in 1988.

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In economics, stagflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high. It presents a dilemma for economic policy, since actions intended to lower inflation may exacerbate unemployment, and vice versa.

Inflation increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy over a period of time

In economics, inflation is a sustained increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy over a period of time. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation reflects a reduction in the purchasing power per unit of money – a loss of real value in the medium of exchange and unit of account within the economy. A chief measure of price inflation is the inflation rate, the annualized percentage change in a general price index, usually the consumer price index, over time. The opposite of inflation is deflation.

Monetarism is a school of thought in monetary economics that emphasizes the role of governments in controlling the amount of money in circulation. Monetarist theory asserts that variations in the money supply have major influences on national output in the short run and on price levels over longer periods. Monetarists assert that the objectives of monetary policy are best met by targeting the growth rate of the money supply rather than by engaging in discretionary monetary policy.

New Keynesian economics is a school of contemporary macroeconomics that strives to provide microeconomic foundations for Keynesian economics. It developed partly as a response to criticisms of Keynesian macroeconomics by adherents of new classical macroeconomics.

Otto Eckstein was a German-American economist. He was a key developer and proponent of the theory of core inflation, which proposed that in determining accurate metrics of long run inflation, the transitory price changes of items subject to volatile pricing, such as food and energy, are to be excluded from computation.

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William Henry Locke Anderson was an American economist and professor at the University of Michigan. During the first half of his career, he did research on macroeconomics; during the second half, he focused on Marxist economics and became an editor of Monthly Review, a Marxist journal.

Francis Michel Bator was a Hungarian-American economist and educator. He was a professor emeritus at Harvard Kennedy School of political economy. He was born in Budapest, Hungary. Bator attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned a Ph.D. in 1956. He was Deputy National Security Advisor of the United States from 1965 to 1967. He was also a Special Assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Geoffrey Maynard

Geoffrey Walter Maynard was a British economist.

References

  1. ↑ U.S. Dept of State, Office of Historian. "Hugh Gardner Ackley Ambassador Italy"
  2. 1 2 McDowell, Edwin. "H. Gardner Ackley, 82, Dies; Presidential Economic Adviser", The New York Times, February 21, 1998.
  3. ↑ Gardner Ackley Papers 1936–1990. "Summary Information", Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.
  4. 1 2 "H. Gardner Ackley, Obituary", The University Record, University of Michigan, February 25, 1998.
  5. ↑ Ackley, Gardner (1961). Macroeconomic Theory. New York: Macmillan.
  6. ↑ "Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter A" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 1 April 2011.
Political offices
Preceded by
Walter Heller 		Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers
1964–1968		Succeeded by
Art Okun
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by
Fred Reinhardt 		United States Ambassador to Italy
1968–1969		Succeeded by
Graham Martin
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