Ezra Solomon (March 20, 1920 – December 9, 2002) was an influential US economist and professor of economics at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. As a member of the Council of Economic Advisors (1971–1973) during the Nixon administration, he was seen as having contributed significantly to the change in US monetary policy which resulted in the end of the gold standard for US currency and of the

Bretton Woods system The Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial and financial relations among the United States, Canada, Western European countries, Australia, and Japan after the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement. The Bretto ...

of exchange rates.

Early life and education

Solomon was born in

Rangoon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

(now Yangon),

British Burma British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

to parents of Burmese British Jewish heritage. He graduated with a first class honours degree in economics from the

University of Rangoon '') , mottoeng = There's no friend like wisdom. , established = , type = Public , rector = Dr. Tin Mg Tun , undergrad = 4194 , postgrad = 5748 , city = Kamayut 11041, Yangon , state = Yangon Regio ...

in 1940, but fled the country when the Japanese invaded Burma in 1941. Solomon served as a lieutenant in the Burma Division of the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) from 1942 to 1947. After World War II, he was sent to the University of Chicago as a Burma State Scholar, where he earned a PhD in economics in 1950.Van Overtveldt 2007:259

Post-graduate career

During his graduate studies, Solomon joined the faculty of the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business (now Booth School of Business), serving as an assistant professor of finance from 1951 to 1955, and a professor from 1957 to 1961. In 1961, he was recruited by Ernest C. Arbuckle become founding director of the International Center for the Advancement of Management Education (ICAME). Solomon returned to teaching full-time in 1963, and became the

Stanford Graduate School of Business The Stanford Graduate School of Business (also known as Stanford GSB) is the graduate business school of Stanford University, a private research university in Stanford, California. For several years it has been the most selective business schoo ...

's first Dean Witter Distinguished Professor of Finance. Throughout his career, he wrote 13 books and over 100 papers. Solomon retired in 1990 as an emeritus member of the finance faculty. From 1965 until the early 1970s, Solomon was the managing editor of

Prentice-Hall Prentice Hall was an American major educational publisher owned by Savvas Learning Company. Prentice Hall publishes print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market, and distributes its technical titles through the Safari B ...

's ''Foundations of Finance'', an influential book series in accounting and finance. He was well known for work that helped shape modern theories of

corporate finance Corporate finance is the area of finance that deals with the sources of funding, the capital structure of corporations, the actions that managers take to increase the Value investing, value of the firm to the shareholders, and the tools and anal ...

. His most well-known book, ''The Theory of Financial Management'' (1963) revolutionized the study of finance from a descriptive to a rigorous, theory-based discipline founded on mathematics. Solomon was recruited by economist Paul McCracken, then chairman, to serve on President Richard Nixon's

Council of Economic Advisers The Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) is a United States agency within the Executive Office of the President established in 1946, which advises the President of the United States on economic policy. The CEA provides much of the empirical resea ...

Solomon served on the Council from September 9, 1971 until his resignation on March 31, 1973.

Personal life

While studying at the University of Chicago, Solomon wed Janet Lorraine Cameron on May 7, 1949. The couple were married for 53 years, before Cameron died on November 14, 2002, less than a month before his death. The couple had 3 daughters, Catherine, Ming, and Lorna. In Fall 1962, Solomon and his wife purchased a historic 1914 Tudor-style country cottage on Santa Ynez Drive in Stanford, California. He lived there until his death in 2002.

Death

Solomon died of a

stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...

on December 9, 2002 at his home in Stanford, California.

References

Bibliography

*"Ezra Solomon, Who Shaped Finance Theory, Dies at 82"; Lewis, Paul; '' The New York Times''; December 19, 2002 -

obituary An obituary ( obit for short) is an article about a recently deceased person. Newspapers often publish obituaries as news articles. Although obituaries tend to focus on positive aspects of the subject's life, this is not always the case. Ac ...

* *

External links

*
Ezra Solomon: An Oral History
" Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program, 2003. {{DEFAULTSORT:Solomon, Ezra United States Council of Economic Advisers Economists from California American people of Anglo-Burmese descent Burmese emigrants to the United States University of Yangon alumni 1920 births 2002 deaths Burmese people of Jewish descent People from Yangon American people of British-Jewish descent American people of Burmese-Jewish descent People from Stanford, California 20th-century American economists