James Kenneth Galbraith (born January 29, 1952) is an American
economist
An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, 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 ...
. He is currently a professor at the
Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs
The Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs (or LBJ School of Public Affairs) is a graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin that was founded in 1970 to offer training in public policy analysis and administration for students that ar ...
and at the Department of Government,
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
. He is also a Senior Scholar with the
Levy Economics Institute
Founded in 1986 as the Jerome Levy Economics Institute, the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy think tank. The purpose of its research and other activities is to enable scholars and leaders in busi ...
of
Bard College
Bard College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic ...
and part of the executive committee of the World Economics Association, created in 2011.
Background
Galbraith is a son of the renowned Canadian-American economist
John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth Galbraith (October 15, 1908 – April 29, 2006), also known as Ken Galbraith, was a Canadian-American economist, diplomat, public official, and intellectual. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through t ...
and
Catherine (Kitty) Atwater Galbraith and is the brother of the former diplomat, commentator and 2016 Vermont gubernatorial candidate
Peter W. Galbraith
Peter Woodard Galbraith (born December 31, 1950) is an American author, academic, commentator, politician, policy advisor, and former diplomat.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he helped uncover Saddam Hussein's Halabja chemical attack, gassing ...
. He earned his BA, magna cum laude, from
Harvard
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 ...
in 1974 and PhD from Yale in 1981, both in
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 ...
. From 1974 to 1975, Galbraith studied as a
Marshall Scholar
The Marshall Scholarship is a postgraduate scholarship for "intellectually distinguished young Americans ndtheir country's future leaders" to study at any university in the United Kingdom. It is widely considered one of the most prestigious sc ...
at
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the city ...
.
[.]
Career
From 1981 to 1982, Galbraith served on the staff of the
Congress of the United States
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is Bicameralism, bicameral, composed of a lower body, the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives, and an upper body, ...
, eventually as Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee.
[ In 1985, he was a guest scholar at the ]Brookings Institution
The Brookings Institution, often stylized as simply Brookings, is an American research group founded in 1916. Located on Think Tank Row in Washington, D.C., the organization conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in ec ...
.
Galbraith is currently a professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs
The Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs (or LBJ School of Public Affairs) is a graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin that was founded in 1970 to offer training in public policy analysis and administration for students that ar ...
and at the Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
. Galbraith heads up the ''University of Texas Inequality Project'' (''UTIP''), which has been described by economic historian Lord Skidelsky as "pioneering inequality measurement". ''UTIP'' is also noted for replacing the established Gini coefficient with the Theil index
The Theil index is a statistic primarily used to measure economic inequality and other economic phenomena, though it has also been used to measure racial segregation.
The Theil index ''T''T is the same as redundancy in information theory which is ...
as the measurement of choice for comparing inequality between groups, regions and countries.
In March 2008 Galbraith used the 25th Annual Milton Friedman Distinguished Lecture to launch a sweeping attack on the Washington Consensus
The Washington Consensus is a set of ten economic policy prescriptions considered to constitute the "standard" reform package promoted for crisis-wracked developing countries by Washington, D.C.-based institutions such as the International Monet ...
on free market
In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any o ...
policies, especially the monetarist
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 ...
version. He argued strongly that Keynesian economics offered a solution to the financial crisis that started in 2007 whereas monetarist policies would deepen the recession. Towards the end of 2008 and into 2009 many policymakers around the world increased government spending and/or cut taxes, arguably in line with Galbraith’s views, as part of the Keynesian resurgence described by the ''Financial Times'' as "a stunning reversal of the orthodoxy of the past several decades".
In 2010 he edited an edition of his father's works for the Library of America
The Library of America (LOA) is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LOA has published over 300 volumes by authors rangi ...
series.
Writings
Galbraith's books include ; ; , co-edited with Maureen Berner; and . He is the author of two textbooks – (with Robert L. Heilbroner
Robert L. Heilbroner (March 24, 1919 – January 4, 2005) was an American economist and historian of economic thought. The author of some 20 books, Heilbroner was best known for ''The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great ...
) and (with William Darity Jr.)
He also contributes a column to and writes regularly for , , , and . His op-ed pieces have appeared in , , and other newspapers.
Galbraith argues that modern America has fallen prey to a wealthy, government-controlling "predatory class":
Galbraith is also highly critical of the Bush
Bush commonly refers to:
* Shrub, a small or medium woody plant
Bush, Bushes, or the bush may also refer to:
People
* Bush (surname), including any of several people with that name
**Bush family, a prominent American family that includes:
*** ...
administration's foreign policy apropos of the Iraq invasion
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...
:
Much like his father in writing ''A Tenured Professor
''A Tenured Professor'' (1990) is a satirical novel by Canadian-American economist and Harvard professor emeritus John Kenneth Galbraith about a liberal university teacher who sets out to change American society by making money and then using it f ...
'', the junior Galbraith is also a critic of his own profession:
Humanitarian initiatives
Galbraith is the Chairman of Economists for Peace and Security Economists for Peace and Security (EPS) is a New York-based, United Nations accredited and registered global organization and network of thought-leading economists, political scientists, and security experts founded in 1989 that promotes non-militar ...
, formerly known as Economists Against the Arms Race and later Economists Allied for Arms Reduction (ECAAR), an international association of professional economists concerned with peace and security issues.
In 2009, he joined the project for '' Soldiers of Peace'', a documentary for global peace and against all wars, which has won various awards in film festivals.
Books
* .
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References
External links
* , with an archive of his papers.
* .
* , 93 minutes.
* .
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Galbraith, James K.
1952 births
Living people
21st-century American economists
Post-Keynesian economists
American essayists
American political writers
Harvard University alumni
Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
University of Texas at Austin faculty
Marshall Scholars
American economics writers
American columnists
American male essayists