John Robert Meyer (December 6, 1927 – October 20, 2009) was 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 ...

and

educator A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

. Meyer is credited with creating the field of

transport economics Transport economics is a branch of economics founded in 1959 by American economist John R. Meyer that deals with the allocation of resources within the transport sector. It has strong links to civil engineering. Transport economics differs from ...

and was one of the pioneers of

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 ...

Career

Born in Pasco, Meyer attended

Pacific University Pacific University is a private university in Forest Grove, Oregon. Founded in 1849 as the Tualatin Academy, the original Forest Grove campus is west of Portland. The university maintains three other campuses in Eugene, Hillsboro, and Wood ...

from 1945 to 1946, after which he served in the

United States Naval Reserve The United States Navy Reserve (USNR), known as the United States Naval Reserve from 1915 to 2005, is the Reserve Component (RC) of the United States Navy. Members of the Navy Reserve, called Reservists, are categorized as being in either the Sele ...

from 1945 to 1948. He received his

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

in 1950, and a

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

from

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 ...

in 1955. His dissertation topic (business investment decisions) coincided with that of a Harvard classmate,

Edwin Kuh Edwin Kuh (April 13, 1925 – June 9, 1986) was an American economist. He was a faculty member at the MIT Sloan School of Management for over 30 years, and was widely known for his work with econometric models to forecast production, savings, inv ...

, leading them to merge both papers and publish it as ''The Investment Decision: An Empirical Study'' in 1957. Meyer was a professor at Harvard's Department of Economics from 1955 to 1968, and then at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

from 1968 to 1973. He returned to the Cambridge in 1973 as a professor at the

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

until 1983. He served as president of the

National Bureau of Economic Research The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is an American private nonprofit research organization "committed to undertaking and disseminating unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic c ...

from 1967 to 1977. Meyer was a consultant to the National Transportation Policy Study Commission from 1977 to 1979. He served as vice chairman and board member of

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

. From 1996 to 1998, Meyer served as co-interim director of Harvard's

Joint Center for Housing Studies The Joint Center for Housing Studies is a research center on housing-related issues at Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Through its research, education, and public outreach programs, the center helps leade ...

, along with Gerald McCue. Meyer chaired their faculty committee from 1997 to 2003. He ended his career at Harvard as the James W. Harpel Professor of Capital Formation and Economic Growth Emeritus at the

Harvard Kennedy School The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school offers master's degrees in public policy, public ...

. The Joint Center for Housing Studies named a dissertation fellowship in Meyer's honor.

Transport economics and cliometrics

Meyer and three co-authors (Merton Peck, John Stenason and

Charles Zwick Charles John Zwick (July 17, 1926 – April 20, 2018) was an American civil servant who served as director of the United States' Office of Management and Budget from January 29, 1968, until January 21, 1969, under the administration of Lyndon B. J ...

) published ''The Economics of Competition in the Transportation Industries'' in 1959. This book conducted a thorough analysis of costs and demand, which enabled the authors to study what the railroad industry might look like if it were better governed. Regulation of railroads had implicitly given incentivizes to passenger over freight trains. This made railroads less efficient and also less profitable because intercity rail’s great comparative advantage was in moving goods over long distances. They are now credited with creating the field of

. Meyer's second influential book on the topic was ''The Urban Transportation Problem'', co-authored with John F. Kain and Martin Wohl. The book described the process of American

suburbanization Suburbanization is a population shift from central urban areas into suburbs, resulting in the formation of (sub)urban sprawl. As a consequence of the movement of households and businesses out of the city centers, low-density, peripheral urba ...

and the rapid switch from public transportation to cars. Meyer was also a pioneer of

. In 1958, he and fellow Harvard professor

Alfred H. Conrad Alfred Haskell Conrad (January 2, 1924 – October 18, 1970) was a distinguished professor of economics at Harvard University and City College of New York. He belonged to the quantitative economic current called new economic history, or cliomet ...

published ''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 ...

''. Using rigorous statistics, the authors concluded that the view that

slavery in the United States The legal institution of human chattel slavery, comprising the enslavement primarily of Africans and African Americans, was prevalent in the United States of America from its founding in 1776 until 1865, predominantly in the South. Sl ...

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 ...

, as claimed by Charles W. Ramsdell,

Ulrich Bonnell Phillips Ulrich Bonnell Phillips (November 4, 1877 – January 21, 1934) was an American historian who largely defined the field of the social and economic studies of the history of the Antebellum South and slavery in the U.S. Phillips concentrated on t ...

, and other historians. This anticipated the study 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 D ...

, who later arrived at the same conclusion.

Personal life

In 1949, Meyer married Lee Stowell, and they had three children: Leslie Karen; Ann Elizabeth; and Robert Conrad. In 2009, Meyer died on October 20 after a long battle with

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

Selected works

*''Business Motivation and the Investment Decision: an Econometric Study of Postwar Investment Patterns in the Manufacturing Sector'' (1955) *''The Investment Decision: an Empirical Study'', with Edwin Kuh (1957) *''The Economics of Competition in the Transportation Industries'', with others (1959) *''Wage, Price, and National Income Relationships in Light of Recent Findings on the Behavior of Large Business Corporations'' (1959) *''New England's Transportation: a Fresh, New Look at Our Old Problems'' (1962) *''Technology and Urban Transportation, with John Kain and Martin Wohl'' (1962) *''The Economics of Slavery: and Other Studies in Econometric History'', with Alfred Conrad (1964) *''Studies in Econometric History'', with Alfred Conrad (1964) *''Investment Decisions, Economic Forecasting, and Public Policy'', with Robert Glauber (1964) *''Transportation in the Program Budget'' (1965) *''The Urban Transportation Problem'', with John Kain and Martin Wohl (1965) *''An Analysis of Investment Alternatives in the Colombian Transport System; Final Report'', with Paul Roberts and David Kresge *''Essays in Regional Economics'', with John Kain (1971) *''Urban Transportation in Summary and Perspective'', with John Kain and Martin Wohl (1972) *''Measurement and Analysis of Productivity in Transportation Industries'', (1975) *''The Economics of U-shaped Costs'', with Robert Leone (1979) *''The Economics of Competition in the Telecommunications Industry'' (1980) *''The Impact of National Tax Policies on Homeownership'', with Leslie Meyer (1981) *''Airline Deregulation: the Early Experience'', with Clinton Oster and others (1981) *''Autos, Transit, and Cities'', with Jose A. Gomez-Ibanez (1981) *''Deregulation and the New Airline Entrepreneurs'', with Clinton Oster and Mami Clippinger (1984) *''Deregulation and the Future of Intercity Passenger Travel'', with Clinton Oster and John Strong (1987) *''The Transition to Deregulation: Developing Economic Standards for Public Policies'', with Bill Tye (1991) *''Private Toll Roads in the United States: the Early Experience of Virginia and California'', with Jose A. Gomez-Ibanez (1991) *''The Political Economy of Transport Privatization: Successes, Failures and Lessons from Developed and Developing Countries'', with Jose A. Gomez-Ibanez (1992) *''Going Private: the International Experience with Transport Privatization'', with Jose A Ghomnez-Ibanez (1993) *''Moving to Market: Restructuring Transport in the Former Soviet Union'', with John Strong, Clell Harral and Graham Smith (1996) *''The Role of Industrial and Post-industrial Cities in Economic Development'' (2000) *''American Railroads: Decline and Renaissance in the Twentieth Century'', with Robert Gallamore (2014)

References

External links

Harvard Kennedy School obituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Meyer, John Robert 1927 births 2009 deaths People from Pasco, Washington United States Navy reservists Pacific University alumni Harvard University alumni Harvard University faculty Economic historians Transport economists 20th-century American economists Fellows of the Econometric Society