Lester Greenspan Telser (January 3, 1931 - September 3, 2022) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

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 ...

and

Professor Emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

in Economics at 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 ...

Education and career

He was a native of the Hyde Park neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago and a graduate of the Chicago Public Schools (Charles Kozminski elementary school and Hyde Park High School (now

Hyde Park Academy High School Hyde Park Academy High School (formerly known as Hyde Park High School and Hyde Park Career Academy) is a public 4–year high school located in the Woodlawn neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Opened in 1863, Hyd ...

)) and

Roosevelt University Roosevelt University is a private university with campuses in Chicago and Schaumburg, Illinois. Founded in 1945, the university was named in honor of United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The unive ...

, where he studied under

Abba Lerner Abraham "Abba" Ptachya Lerner (also Abba Psachia Lerner; 28 October 1903 – 27 October 1982) was a Russian-born American-British economist. Biography Born in Novoselytsia, Bessarabia, Russian Empire, Lerner grew up in a Jewish family, which ...

. He received his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

from the

in 1956, with

Milton Friedman Milton Friedman (; July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the ...

as his principal thesis supervisor. He taught briefly at

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the ...

and was conscripted into the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

in which he served from 1956–1958. He was a member of the University of Chicago faculty from 1958 (emeritus at the time of death).Faculty listing
, University of Chicago Economics Department, retrieved 2010-01-07. He was a visitor at the

Cowles Foundation The Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics is an economic research institute at Yale University. It was created as the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics at Colorado Springs in 1932 by businessman and economist Alfred Cowles. In 193 ...

(which had formerly been at the University of Chicago) at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

in 1964–1965 and at the Center for Operations Research in Econometrics (CORE) at the Catholic University of Louvain ( Université catholique de Louvain) in Louvain ( Leuven,

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

) in 1969–1970.

Contributions

His works include research on the theory of the core,

Federal Reserve The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States of America. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a ...

policy, and

integer programming An integer programming problem is a mathematical optimization or feasibility program in which some or all of the variables are restricted to be integers. In many settings the term refers to integer linear programming (ILP), in which the objective ...

. Unusually for the Chicago school of economics, he also wrote about game theory as early as 1972. A brief, personal history by Lester Telser of the

Economics Department including the importance of the

is available as part of a symposium on "Living the Legacy: Chicago Economics through the Years." The

University of California-Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

also created an oral history of modern economics and included an interview with Lester Telser. His first name is an anagram of his surname.

Awards and honors

In 1968 he became a

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 ...

of the

Econometric Society The Econometric Society is an international society of academic economists interested in applying statistical tools to their field. It is an independent organization with no connections to societies of professional mathematicians or statisticians. ...

and 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 ...

Books

*''Functional Analysis in Mathematical Economics: Optimization Over Infinite Horizons'' (with Robert L. Graves, 1972). *''Competition, Collusion, and Game Theory'' (1972). *''Economic Theory and the Core'' (1978). *''A Theory of Efficient Cooperation and Competition'' (1987). *''Theories of Competition'' (1988). *''Joint Ventures of Labor and Capital'' (1997). *''Classic Futures: Lessons from the Past for the Electronic Age''. *''The Core Theory in Economics: Problems and Solutions'' (2007).Routledge, 2007, ; Taylor and Francis, 2009, .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Telser, Lester G. 1931 births People from Chicago Economists from Illinois Fellows of the Econometric Society University of Chicago alumni University of Chicago faculty Fellows of the American Statistical Association Mathematicians from Illinois Hyde Park Academy High School alumni