Alfred Haskell Conrad (January 2, 1924 – October 18, 1970) was a distinguished professor of

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

and

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

. He belonged to the quantitative economic current called

new economic history Cliometrics (, also ), sometimes called new economic history or econometric history, is the systematic application of economic theory, econometric techniques, and other formal or mathematical methods to the study of history (especially social and e ...

, or

cliometrics Cliometrics (, also ), sometimes called new economic history or econometric history, is the systematic application of economic theory, econometric techniques, and other formal or mathematical methods to the study of history (especially social and e ...

. Conrad attended Brooklyn Boys High and in 1947 graduated from Harvard College. There he completed a doctorate in economics in 1954 and later taught in the economics department and in the business school. In 1958 he co-authored "The Economics of Slavery in the Antebellum South", in the ''

Journal of Political Economy The ''Journal of Political Economy'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal published by the University of Chicago Press. Established by James Laurence Laughlin in 1892, it covers both theoretical and empirical economics. In the past, the ...

'', with

John R. Meyer John Robert Meyer (December 6, 1927 – October 20, 2009) was an American economist and educator. Meyer is credited with creating the field of transport economics and was one of the pioneers of cliometrics. Career Born in Pasco, Meyer atte ...

. Using rigorous statistics, the authors concluded that the view that slavery would have disappeared without the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

was "a romantic hypothesis which will not stand against the facts". This study anticipated ''

Time on the Cross ''Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery'' (1974) is a book by the economists Robert Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman. Fogel and Engerman argued that slavery was an economically rational institution and that the economic exploita ...

'' by

Robert Fogel Robert William Fogel (; July 1, 1926 – June 11, 2013) was an American economic historian and scientist, and winner (with Douglass North) of the 1993 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. As of his death, he was the Charles R. Walgreen Di ...

and

Stanley Engerman Stanley Lewis Engerman (born March 14, 1936) is an economist and economic historian at the University of Rochester. He received his Ph.D. in economics in 1962 from Johns Hopkins University. Engerman is known for his quantitative historical work ...

, which reached the same conclusion. Edward L. Glaeser
"Remembering the Father of Transportation Economics"
''The New York Times'' (Economix), October 27, 2009. Conrad was married to the poet

Adrienne Rich Adrienne Cecile Rich ( ; May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing "th ...

, with whom he had three sons. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in

Peacham, Vermont Peacham is a town in Caledonia County, Vermont, Caledonia County, Vermont, United States. The population was 715 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. History In 1763, Governor Benning Wentworth of Province of New Hampshire, New Hampsh ...

at the age of 46.

References

1924 births 1970 deaths Harvard Business School faculty Suicides by firearm in Vermont Harvard College alumni 20th-century American economists 1970 suicides Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni {{US-economist-stub