Thomas Nixon Carver (25 March 1865 – 8 March 1961) was an American economics professor.

Early life

He grew up on a farm, the son of

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

parents. He received an undergraduate education at

Iowa Wesleyan College Iowa Wesleyan University is a private university in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. It is Iowa's first co-educational institution of higher learning and the oldest of its type west of the Mississippi River. The institution is affiliated with the United Met ...

and the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

. After studying under

John Bates Clark John Bates Clark (January 26, 1847 – March 21, 1938) was an American neoclassical economist. He was one of the pioneers of the marginalist revolution and opponent to the Institutionalist school of economics, and spent most of his career as ...

and

Richard T. Ely Richard Theodore Ely (April 13, 1854 – October 4, 1943) was an American economist, author, and leader of the Progressive movement who called for more government intervention to reform what they perceived as the injustices of capitalism, especial ...

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

, he received a

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 ...

degree at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

under

Walter Francis Willcox Walter Francis Willcox (March 22, 1861 – October 30, 1964) was an American statistician. He was born in Reading, Massachusetts, to William Henry Willcox and Anne Holmes Goodenow. He was graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover, in 1880, from ...

in 1894.

Career

He held a joint appointment 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 ...

and

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...

until 1902, when he accepted a position as professor of

political economy Political economy is the study of how Macroeconomics, economic systems (e.g. Marketplace, markets and Economy, national economies) and Politics, political systems (e.g. law, Institution, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied ph ...

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 ...

(1902–1935). For a time, there he taught the only course in sociology. He was the secretary-treasurer of the American Economic Association (1909–1913) and was elected its President in 1916. Carver's principal achievement in economic theory was to extend Clark's theory of

marginalism Marginalism is a theory of economics that attempts to explain the discrepancy in the value of goods and services by reference to their secondary, or marginal, utility. It states that the reason why the price of diamonds is higher than that of wa ...

to determination of interest from saving ('abstinence') and

productivity Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proces ...

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

. He made pioneering contributions to

agricultural Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating Plant, plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of Sedentism, sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of Domestication, domesticated species created food ...

and

rural economics Rural economics is the study of rural economies. Rural economies include both agricultural and non-agricultural industries, so rural economics has broader concerns than agricultural economics which focus more on food systems. Rural development ...

and in

rural sociology Rural sociology is a field of sociology traditionally associated with the study of social structure and conflict in rural areas. It is an active academic field in much of the world, originating in the United States in the 1910s with close ties ...

. He wrote on such diverse topics as

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 ...

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 ...

, the

distribution of wealth The distribution of wealth is a comparison of the wealth of various members or groups in a society. It shows one aspect of economic inequality or economic heterogeneity. The distribution of wealth differs from the income distribution in that ...

, the

problem of evil The problem of evil is the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God.The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,The Problem of Evil, Michael TooleyThe Internet Encyclope ...

, uses of religion,

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fu ...

behavioral economics Behavioral economics studies the effects of psychological, cognitive, emotional, cultural and social factors on the decisions of individuals or institutions, such as how those decisions vary from those implied by classical economic theory. ...

social evolution {{unreferenced, date=February 2015 ''Social Evolution'' is the title of an essay by Benjamin Kidd, which became available as a book published by Macmillan and co London in 1894. In it, Kidd discusses the basis for society as an evolving phenomenon ...

, and the economics of national survival.

Works

Books

*(1893). ''The Place of Abstinence in the Theory of Interest''. * (1894). ''The Theory of Wages Adjusted to Recent Theories of Value''. * (1904). ''The Distribution of Wealth''. * (1905). ''Sociology and Social Progress''. * (1910). ''Rural Economy as a Factor in the Success of the Church''. * (1911). ''Principles of Rural Economics''. * (1911). ''The Religion Worth Having''. * (1915). ''Essays in Social Justice''. * (1916). ''Selected Readings in Rural Economics''. * (1916). ''Selected Writings in Rural Economics''. * (1917). ''The Foundations of National Prosperity''. * (1918). ''Agricultural Economics''. * (1919). ''Government Control of the Liquor Business in Great Britain and the United States''. * (1919). ''Principles of Political Economy''. * (1919). ''War Thrift''. * (1920). ''Elementary Economics'' ith Maude Carmichael * (1921). ''Principles of National Economy''. * (1923). ''Human Relations: An Introduction to Sociology'' ith Henry Bass Hall * (1924). ''The Economy of Human Energy''. * (1925). ''The Present Economic Revolution in the United States''. * (1927). ''Principles of Rural Sociology'' ith Gustav A. Lundquist * (1928). ''Economic World and How It May Be Improved'' ith Hugh W. Lester * (1932). ''Our Economic Life''. * (1935). ''The Essential Factors of Social Evolution''. * * (1949). ''Recollections of an Unplanned Life''.

Sole author journal articles

* * * * * Carver also co-wrote a number of journal articles, presided over conference presentations, and published in conference proceedings.

Notes

External links

*
Works by Thomas Nixon Carver
at

JSTOR JSTOR (; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library founded in 1995 in New York City. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of j ...

Works by Thomas Nixon Carver
at

Hathi Trust HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carver, Thomas Nixon 1865 births 1961 deaths American economists Presidents of the American Economic Association Cornell University alumni