Allyn Abbott Young (September 19, 1876 – March 7, 1929) was an American
economist
An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social science discipline of economics.
The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this field there are ...
. He was born into a middle-class family in
Kenton, Ohio
Kenton is a city in and the county seat of Hardin County, Ohio, United States, located in the west-central part of Ohio about 57 mi (92 km) northwest of Columbus and 70 mi (113 km) south of Toledo. Its population was 7,947 ...
. He died aged 52 in London, his life cut short by
pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...
during an
influenza epidemic. He was then at the height of his intellectual powers and current president of Section F of the British Association. Uniquely, Young had also been
president of the American Statistical Association (1917) and the
American Economic Association (1925).
Life
As documented in a 1995 biography by Charles Blitch, Young was a brilliant student, graduating from
Hiram College
Hiram College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Hiram, Ohio. It was founded in 1850 as the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute by Amos Sutton Hayden and other members of the Disciples of Christ Church. The college is nonsectarian and c ...
in 1892 at the age of sixteen, the youngest graduate on record. After a few years in the printing trade he enrolled in 1898 in the graduate school of the
University of Wisconsin
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...
where he studied economics under
Richard T. Ely
Richard Theodore Ely (April 13, 1854 – October 4, 1943) was an American economist, author, and leader of the Progressive movement who called for more government intervention to reform what they perceived as the injustices of capitalism, especial ...
and William A. Scott, history under Charles H. Haskins and Frederick Jackson Turner, and statistics under Edward D. Jones. In 1900 he was engaged for a year as an assistant in the
United States Bureau of the Census
The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...
in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, where he established lifelong friendships with
Walter F. Willcox,
Wesley C. Mitchell and
Thomas S. Adams.
Young returned to the University of Wisconsin as instructor in Economics for the 1901–02 academic session and graduated there in 1902 with a doctoral dissertation on Age Statistics. He then embarked on what Blitch has called a peripatetic academic career, beginning with posts at
Western Reserve University
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
* Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that i ...
, 1902–04; Dartmouth, 1904–05; and Wisconsin, 1905–06. He was then head of the economics department at
Stanford, 1906–10, followed by a year at
Harvard as visitor, 1910–11, and two years at
Washington University in St Louis
Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is ...
, 1911–13. In 1914, he became one of the inaugural
Fellow
A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context.
In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements.
Within the context of higher education ...
s of the
American Statistical Association
The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest continuousl ...
. From 1913 to 1920 he was professor at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
, but war took him to Washington D.C., in 1917 to direct the Bureau of Statistical Research for the War Trade Board, and to
New York in 1918 to head the economics division of a group known as "The Enquiry" under Colonel
Edward M. House, the group charged with laying the groundwork for the
Paris Peace Conference.
After the war, Young moved to Harvard in 1920 where he stayed until 1927 when he accepted
William Beveridge
William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron Beveridge, (5 March 1879 – 16 March 1963) was a British economist and Liberal politician who was a progressive and social reformer who played a central role in designing the British welfare state. His 19 ...
's offer of the chair vacated by
Edwin Cannan
Edwin Cannan (3 February 1861, Funchal, Madeira – 8 April 1935, Bournemouth), the son of David Cannan and artist Jane Cannan, was a British economist and historian of economic thought. He was a professor at the London School of Economics from 1 ...
at the
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public university, public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidn ...
. He remained at the LSE for three years before returning to Harvard. In December 1928 he traveled to the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
to explain in person why he felt unable to accept their invitation to be chairman of their economics department. It was shortly after his return to London that he succumbed to the fateful influenza epidemic.
At the time of his death T. E. Gregory, a colleague at the LSE, wrote that Young had recently "begun work on a systematic treatise on economic theory and had resumed the writing of the work upon
monetary theory
Monetary economics is the branch of economics that studies the different competing theories of money: it provides a framework for analyzing money and considers its functions (such as medium of exchange, store of value and unit of account), and it ...
which he had begun at Harvard." He continued:
:A passion for thoroughness would drive him on to explore every inch of the field in which he was for the time interested: he was always convinced that economic truth was not the monopoly of a single school or way of thinking, and that the first duty of a teacher and thinker was to see the strong points in every presentation of a point of view. Such an attitude of mind, combined with great personal modesty, made for unsystematic writing: for scattered papers and articles and not for a comprehensive treatise. In many respects he resembled
Edgeworth, for whose work he felt a growing admiration; and if Young's work is ever collected, it will be seen that, like Edgeworth's, it amounts in sum to a very considerable and impressive achievement.
In 1971
Nobel Laureate Bertil Ohlin
Bertil Gotthard Ohlin () (23 April 1899 – 3 August 1979) was a Swedish economist and politician. He was a professor of economics at the Stockholm School of Economics from 1929 to 1965. He was also leader of the People's Party, a social-libe ...
, who attended a course of Young's at Harvard in 1922–23, wrote to Young's biographer:
:I am inclined to believe that he was a man, who knew and thoroughly understood his subject—economics—better than anyone else I have met. I tested him by means of a question about the "
Wicksell effect", i.e. the special aspects of the marginal productivity of capital, which at that time was practically unknown in most countries outside of Scandinavia. He immediately gave a fine account in a five minutes speech before the students. What characterizes Allyn Young as an economist was that he had deep understanding of all fields of economic theory while other economists knew well one third of the theory and had only superficial knowledge of the rest.
Young's other famous students, strongly influenced by him, included
Frank H. Knight,
Edward Chamberlin
Edward Hastings Chamberlin (May 18, 1899 – July 16, 1967) was an American economist. He was born in La Conner, Washington, and died in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Chamberlin studied first at the University of Iowa (where he was influenced by F ...
,
Nicholas Kaldor
Nicholas Kaldor, Baron Kaldor (12 May 1908 – 30 September 1986), born Káldor Miklós, was a Cambridge economist in the post-war period. He developed the "compensation" criteria called Kaldor–Hicks efficiency for welfare comparisons (1939), d ...
and
Lauchlin Currie. He was also an influential adviser in the 1920s to
Benjamin Strong
Benjamin Strong Jr. (December 22, 1872 – October 16, 1928) was an American banker. He served as Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for 14 years until his death. He exerted great influence over the policy and actions of the entire F ...
, governor of the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Much of his writing was published anonymously and posthumously in encyclopedias, but rescued from oblivion in a volume edited by Perry Mehrling and Roger Sandilands (1999).
His best-known single paper was his presidential address to the British Association in September 1928 on "Increasing returns and economic progress".
Nicholas Kaldor
Nicholas Kaldor, Baron Kaldor (12 May 1908 – 30 September 1986), born Káldor Miklós, was a Cambridge economist in the post-war period. He developed the "compensation" criteria called Kaldor–Hicks efficiency for welfare comparisons (1939), d ...
insisted that this paper had been neglected because it was 50 years ahead of his time, but it has recently enjoyed a revival of interest as an acknowledged forerunner of modern "
endogenous growth theory".
Paul Samuelson
Paul Anthony Samuelson (May 15, 1915 – December 13, 2009) was an American economist who was the first American to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. When awarding the prize in 1970, the Swedish Royal Academies stated that he " ...
named Young (along with
Harry Gunnison Brown
Harry Gunnison Brown (May 7, 1880– March 11, 1975) was a Georgist economist teaching at Yale in the early 20th century. Paul Samuelson named Brown in a list of "American saints in economics" that included only 6 other economists born after 1860 ...
,
Wesley Clair Mitchell
Wesley Clair Mitchell (August 5, 1874 – October 29, 1948) was an American economist known for his empirical work on business cycles and for guiding the National Bureau of Economic Research in its first decades.
Mitchell was referred to as Thor ...
,
Henry Ludwell Moore
Henry Ludwell Moore (November 21, 1869 – April 28, 1958) was an American economist known for his pioneering work in econometrics. Paul Samuelson named Moore (along with Harry Gunnison Brown, Allyn Abbott Young, Wesley Clair Mitchell, Frank Kni ...
,
Frank Knight
Frank Hyneman Knight (November 7, 1885 – April 15, 1972) was an American economist who spent most of his career at the University of Chicago, where he became one of the founders of the Chicago School. Nobel laureates Milton Friedman, George ...
,
Jacob Viner
Jacob Viner (3 May 1892 – 12 September 1970) was a Canadian economist and is considered with Frank Knight and Henry Simons to be one of the "inspiring" mentors of the early Chicago school of economics in the 1930s: he was one of the leading fig ...
, and
Henry Schultz
Henry Schultz (September 4, 1893 – November 26, 1938) was an American economist, statistician, and one of the founders of econometrics. Paul Samuelson named Schultz (along with Harry Gunnison Brown, Allyn Abbott Young, Henry Ludwell Moore, Fr ...
) as one of the several "American saints in economics" born after 1860.
Bibliography
* Collections of Young's papers are in the Hiram College archives and in the Harvard University Archive.
* Charles Blitch, ''Allyn Young: The Peripatetic Economist'', Macmillan, 1995. A book-length treatment of Young's work. Revie
extract ''Economic Journal'', 1997.
* Perry G Mehrling and Roger J Sandilands (eds.), ''Money and Growth: Selected Papers of Allyn Abbott Young'', Routledge, 1999, including a comprehensive bibliography. Scroll to article-previe
links.
References
* Peter Newman (1987). "Young, Allyn Abbott," ''
The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', v. 4, pp. 937–40.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Young, Allyn Abbott
1876 births
1929 deaths
Academics of the London School of Economics
Hiram College alumni
University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni
University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty
Harvard University faculty
Fellows of the American Statistical Association
Presidents of the American Statistical Association
People from Kenton, Ohio
American statisticians
Presidents of the American Economic Association
Economists from Ohio
Case Western Reserve University faculty
Washington University in St. Louis faculty
Cornell University faculty
Dartmouth College faculty