Thomas MacGillivray Humphrey (born 1935) 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 ...
. Until 2005 he was a research advisor and senior economist in the research department of the
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond is the headquarters of the Fifth District of the Federal Reserve located in Richmond, Virginia. It covers the District of Columbia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and most of West Virginia ...
and editor of the Bank's flagship publication, the ''Economic Quarterly''.
His publications cover
macroeconomics
Macroeconomics (from the Greek prefix ''makro-'' meaning "large" + ''economics'') is a branch of economics dealing with performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole.
For example, using interest rates, taxes, and ...
,
monetary economics
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 ...
, and the
history of economic thought
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
.
Mark Blaug
Mark Blaug FBA (; 3 April 1927 – 18 November 2011) was a Dutch-born British economist (naturalised in 1982), who covered a broad range of topics during his long career.
He was married to Ruth Towse.
Life and work
Blaug was born on 3 April ...
called him the "undisputed master" of British classical monetary thought.
Writing and research
Humphrey has written books and journal articles on monetary policy history. He is the author of articles published in journals such as the ''Cato Journal
The ''Cato Journal'' is a triannual peer-reviewed academic journal which covers public policy from an Austro- libertarian point of view. It was established in 1981 and is published by the Cato Institute. It publishes articles discussing politics ...
'', '' HOPE (History of Political Economy)'', ''Southern Economics Journal'', and ''Econ Focus'' (formerly ''Region Focus''). He wrote over 70 articles published in the journals of the Richmond Federal Reserve. Articles by Humphrey such as ''Rival Notions of Money'' may be freely accessed and downloaded at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond's website.
Humphrey was an editor of the ''Federal Reserve of Richmond Economic Quarterly'', previously known as the ''Economic Review'' and before that as the ''Monthly Review''. In 1998 his annual report for the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond was ''Mercantilists and Classicals: Insights from Doctrinal History''.
His first four books on the history of monetary thought were: ''The Monetary Approach to the Balance of Payments, Exchange Rates, and World Inflation'' (co-author Robert Keleher); ''Money, Banking and Inflation: Essays in the History of Monetary Thought''; ''Money, Exchange and Production: Further Essays in the History of Economic Thought''; and ''Essays on Inflation''. Charles R. McCann, Jr. stated, in reference to Humphrey's book ''Money, Banking and Inflation: Essays in the History of Monetary Thought'' that "monetary economists looking for an accessible introduction to their discipline's past will find few better starting points than this volume."
In 2019 The Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries.Koch Indust ...
published his fifth book, ''Gold, the Real Bills Doctrine, and the Fed: Sources of Monetary Disorder – 1922–1938'', a collaboration between Humphrey and his co-author Richard H. Timberlake
Richard Henry Timberlake Jr. (June 24, 1922 – May 22, 2020) was an American economist who was Professor of Economics at the University of Georgia for much of his career. He became a leading advocate of free banking, the belief that money shoul ...
.
His writing on the history of economic thought was included in the first edition to the ''New Palgrave'' and in the later ''An Encyclopedia of Keynesian Economics'' to which he contributed an article on the Chicago School of Economics
The Chicago school of economics is a neoclassical school of economic thought associated with the work of the faculty at the University of Chicago, some of whom have constructed and popularized its principles. Milton Friedman and George Stigle ...
, and also in festschrift
In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...
en, book reviews, textbooks, annual reports, and anthologies. For ''Famous Figures in Diagrams and Economics'' by Mark Blaug
Mark Blaug FBA (; 3 April 1927 – 18 November 2011) was a Dutch-born British economist (naturalised in 1982), who covered a broad range of topics during his long career.
He was married to Ruth Towse.
Life and work
Blaug was born on 3 April ...
and Peter Lloyd, Humphrey wrote the first chapter, '' Marshallian Cross Diagrams '' and Chapter 55, ''Intertemporal utility maximization – the Fisher diagram''.[ Humphrey's works on ]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 ...
are cited in David Laidler's book ''Fabricating the Keynesian Revolution: Studies of the Inter-War Literature on Money, the Cycle, and Unemployment''.
In 2006, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke
Ben Shalom Bernanke ( ; born December 13, 1953) is an American economist who served as the 14th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014. After leaving the Fed, he was appointed a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution. Durin ...
at the Fourth ECB Central Banking Conference, Frankfurt, Germany, cited Humphrey's article on the real bills doctrine
The real bills doctrine says that as long as bankers lend to businessmen only against the security (collateral) of short-term 30-, 60-, or 90-day commercial paper representing claims to real goods in the process of production, the loans will be jus ...
. In 2008 Humphrey gave the Fourth Annual Ranlett Lecture in Economics at California State University, Sacramento
California State University, Sacramento (CSUS, Sacramento State, or informally Sac State) is a public university in Sacramento, California. Founded in 1947 as Sacramento State College, it is the eleventh oldest school in the 23-campus California ...
, entitled ''Lender of Last Resort: The Concept in History.'' In 2009 Humphrey participated in the Adam Smith Program, Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond
The University of Richmond (UR or U of R) is a private liberal arts college in Richmond, Virginia. It is a primarily undergraduate, residential institution with approximately 4,350 undergraduate and graduate students in five schools: the School ...
, where he presented ''The Fed's Deviation from Classical Thornton-Bagehot Lender-of-Last-Resort Policy'', a paper co-authored with Richard Timberlake
Richard Henry Timberlake Jr. (June 24, 1922 – May 22, 2020) was an American economist who was Professor of Economics at the University of Georgia for much of his career. He became a leading advocate of free banking, the belief that money shoul ...
.
At the 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Economics Association (AEA) in Atlanta, Georgia, his subject was ''The Lender of Last Resort in the History of Economic Thought
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
''. In February 2013, he wrote Working Paper No. 751 ''Arresting Financial Crises: The Fed Versus the Classicals'' for 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 ...
, an essay which was subsequently presented at the 2013 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia of the American Economics Association
The American Economic Association (AEA) is a learned society in the field of economics. It publishes several peer-reviewed journals acknowledged in business and academia. There are some 23,000 members.
History and Constitution
The AEA was esta ...
. He wrote reviews of books by other writers on economic subjects, such as Sylvia Nasar
Sylvia Nasar (born 17 August 1947) is an Uzbek German-born American journalist. She is best known for her biography of John Forbes Nash Jr., '' A Beautiful Mind'', for which she won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. Nasar cur ...
, Arie Arnon, and Robert W. Dimand's "Irving Fisher
Irving Fisher (February 27, 1867 – April 29, 1947) was an American economist, statistician, inventor, eugenicist and progressive social campaigner. He was one of the earliest American neoclassical economists, though his later work on debt def ...
(Great Thinkers in Economics)".
Books
* ''The Monetary Approach to the Balance of Payments, Exchange Rates, and World Inflation'' (co-author Robert Keleher).
* ''Money, Banking and Inflation: Essays in the History of Monetary Thought.''
* ''Money, Exchange, and Production: Further Essays in the History of Economic Thought.''
* ''Essays on Inflation.''
* ''Gold, the Real Bills Doctrine, and the Fed: Sources of Monetary Disorder 1922–1938.'' (co-author Richard H. Timberlake
Richard Henry Timberlake Jr. (June 24, 1922 – May 22, 2020) was an American economist who was Professor of Economics at the University of Georgia for much of his career. He became a leading advocate of free banking, the belief that money shoul ...
).
See also
* List of economists
This is an incomplete alphabetical list by surname of notable economists, experts in the social science of economics, past and present. For a history of economics, see the article History of economic thought. Only economists with biographical artic ...
* List of Tulane University people
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Humphrey, Thomas M.
20th-century American economists
21st-century American economists
1935 births
Living people
New classical economists
Tulane University alumni
Tulane University faculty
University of Tennessee alumni
University of Virginia faculty
Auburn University faculty
St. Andrews University (North Carolina) faculty
American people of Scottish descent
University of Georgia faculty
Duke University faculty
University of Mary Washington faculty
Presbyterian College faculty
Historians of economic thought
Monetarists
People from Louisville, Kentucky
Academics from Kentucky
Economists from Kentucky
Economists from Virginia
Wofford College faculty
Economic historians
University of Tennessee people
Federal Reserve economists
American economics writers
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American economic historians
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