Founder of Modern Economics: Paul A. Samuelson

Lawrence H. Summers, President Emeritus and Charles W. Eliot University Professor of Harvard University Paul Samuelson changed economics and in the process changed the economies and societies we inhabit. This important book tells his story and in the process sheds important new light on the history of our field and our times.

Robert C. Merton, School of Management Distinguished Professor of Finance, MIT and University Professor Emeritus, Harvard University; Nobel Prize in Economic Science, 1997 It has been well said that Paul A. Samuelson was the last great general economist-never again will any one person make such foundational contributions to so many distinct areas of economics. His profound theoretical contributions over nearly seven decades of published research have been ecumenical and his ramified influence on the whole of economics has led economists in just about every branch of economics to claim him as one of their own. Here we have an exploration of the role of personality and social networks in understanding the remarkable intellectual development of this singularly remarkable economist. To the reader, Bon Appetit!

E. Roy Weintraub, Duke University, author of How Economics Became a Mathematical Science America's greatest modern economist transformed economic analysis. The distinguished historian Roger Backhouse has used the newly available Samuelson archives, and much more, to construct this informative and lively intellectual biography to show just how that transformation occurred and Samuelson's role in it. This volume's scholarship will define Samuelson's contributions for a generation.

Perry Mehrling, Professor of Economics, Barnard College, Columbia University Like Harrod in his Life of Keynes, Backhouse provides us with an invaluable first full treatment of the life and work of the economist Paul Samuelson, a key transitional figure between prewar and postwar economics. Choosing as his intellectual fathers both Edwin B. Wilson and Alvin Hansen, Samuelson used his third "sacred decade" of intellectual creativity to produce two very different books, Foundations and Economics, so setting the stage for a life of work in the space between them.

Steven Durlauf, Kenneth J. Arrow Professor of Economics, University of Wisconsin Founder of Modern Economics: Paul A. Samuelson Volume 1: Becoming Samuelson, 1915-1948, is an extraordinary achievement. Master historian of thought Roger Backhouse, in producing the definitive study of the development of one of the greatest minds in the history of economics, not only enriches our understanding of the process of the evolution of social science knowledge, but provides new perspectives on the nature of economic theory. This is a wonderful book.

Roger E. Backhouse is Professor of the History and Philosophy of Economics, University of Birmingham.

Contents List of Figures Preface Part I - The Early Years, 1915-35 1. Childhood 2. The University of Chicago, 1932 3. Natural and social sciences, 1932-3 4. Social scientist to mathematical economist, 1933-4 5: Economics at Chicago, 1932-5 PART II - The Harvard Years, 1935-40 6. First Term at Harvard, Autumn 1935 7. Joseph Alois Schumpeter 8. Edwin Bidwell Wilson 9. Making Connections 10. Simplifying Economic Theory 11. Collaboration 12. Alvin Harvey Hansen 13. Hansen's Disciple 14. The Observational Significance of Economic Theory 15. Leaving Harvard PART III - MIT, War, Foundations and the Textbook, 1940-8 16. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology 17. Statistics 18. Developing the New Economics, I: Theory, 1940-3 19. Hansen and the National Resources Planning Board, 1941-3 20. Developing the New Economics, II: Policy, 1942-3 21. Scientists and Science Policy, 1944-5 22. Foundations of Economic Analysis, 1940-7 23. Postwar Economic Policy, 1944-7 24. Keynes and Keynesian economics 25. Drafting the Textbook, 1945 26. Controversy Over the Textbook, 1947-8 27. Economics, the First Edition, 1948 28. Commitment to MIT 29. Conclusions List of Abbreviations References Endnote