George Stigler

George Joseph Stigler (Template:IPAc-en; January 17, 1911 – December 1, 1991) was an American economist. He was the 1982 laureate in Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and is considered a key leader of the Chicago school of economics.Template:Short description

Early life and education

Stigler was born in Seattle, Washington, the son of Hungarian Elsie Elizabeth<ref name="Zsolt">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> (Erzsébet Hungler, born in Bakonypéterd, Veszprém county, Kingdom of Hungary) and Bavarian Joseph Stigler.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He was of German and Hungarian descent<ref name="Zsolt 2022">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and spoke German in his childhood.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He graduated from the University of Washington in 1931 with a B.A. and then spent a year at Northwestern University, from which he obtained his MBA in 1932. It was during his studies at Northwestern that Stigler developed an interest in economics and decided on an academic career.<ref name="Friedman">Milton Friedman (1992). "George Joseph Stigler January 17, 1911 – December 1, 1991," Template:Webarchive Biographical Memoirs. National Academy of Sciences.</ref>

After he received a tuition scholarship from the University of Chicago, Stigler enrolled there in 1933 to study economics and went on to earn his PhD in economics in 1938.

Career

Stigler taught at Iowa State College from 1936 to 1938. He spent much of World War II at Columbia University, performing mathematical and statistical research for the Manhattan Project. He then spent one year at Brown University. He served on the Columbia faculty from 1947 to 1958.

At Chicago, he was greatly influenced by Frank Knight, his dissertation supervisor. Milton Friedman, a friend for over 50 years,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> commented that it was remarkable for Stigler to have passed his dissertation under Knight, as only three or four students had ever managed to do so in Knight's 28 years at Chicago. Stigler's influences included Jacob Viner and Henry Simons as well as students W. Allen Wallis and Friedman.

In 1977, Stigler founded the Center for the Study of the Economy and the State as a research center of the Chicago Booth School of Business. Upon Stigler's death in 1991, it was renamed the George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State in his honor.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Publications

Stigler is best known for developing the Economic Theory of Regulation (1971), also known as regulatory capture, which says that interest groups and other political participants will use the regulatory and coercive powers of government to shape laws and regulations in a way that is beneficial to them. This theory is a component of the public choice field of economics but is also deeply opposed by public choice scholars belonging to the "Virginia School," such as Charles Rowley.<ref>Palda, Filip. A Better Kind of Violence: The Chicago School of Political Economy, Public Choice, and the Quest for and Ultimate Theory of Power. Cooper-Wolfling Press. 2016.</ref> He also carried out extensive research in the history of economic thought.

Stigler's most important contribution to economics was published in his landmark 1961 article, "The Economics of Information."<ref>George J. Stigler (1961). "The Economics of Information," Journal of Political Economy, 69(3), pp. 213–325. Template:Webarchive</ref> According to Friedman, Stigler "essentially created a new area of study for economists." Stigler stressed the importance of information: "One should hardly have to tell academicians that information is a valuable resource: knowledge is power. And yet it occupies a slum dwelling in the town of economics."<ref name="Friedman" /> His 1962 article "Information in the Labor Market" developed the theory of search unemployment.<ref>George J. Stigler (1962). "Information in the Labor Market." Journal of Political Economy, 70(5), Part 2, pp. 94–105. Template:Webarchive</ref> In 1963 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association.<ref>View/Search Fellows of the ASA Template:Webarchive, accessed 2016-07-23.</ref>

He was known for his sharp sense of humor, and he wrote a number of spoof essays. In his book The Intellectual and the Marketplace, for instance, he proposed Stigler's Law of Demand and Supply Elasticities: "all demand curves are inelastic and all supply curves are inelastic too." The essay referenced studies that found many goods and services to be inelastic over the long run and offered a supposed theoretical proof; he ended by announcing that his next essay would demonstrate that the price system does not exist. Another essay, "A Sketch on the Truth in Teaching," described the consequences of a (fictional) set of court decisions that held universities legally responsible for the consequences of teaching errors.<ref>George J. Stigler, 1973. "A Sketch of the History of Truth in Teaching," Journal of Political Economy, 81(2, Part 1), pp. 491 Template:Webarchive–495.</ref> The Stigler diet is also named after him.<ref>Based on his 1945 article. "The Cost of Subsistence," Journal of Farm Economics, 2, pp. 303–314. Arrow-scrollable. Template:Webarchive</ref>

Stigler wrote numerous articles on the history of economics, published in the leading journals and republished 14 of them in 1965. The American Economic Review said, "many of these essays have become such well-known landmarks that no scholar in this field should be unfamiliar with them... The lucid prose, penetrating logic, and wry humor... have become the author's trademarks."<ref>Thomas Sowell, review in American Economic Review (June, 1965), p. 552.</ref><ref>George J. Stigler, Essays in the History of Economics (University of Chicago Press, 1965).</ref> However, Deirdre McCloskey has criticized his characterization of Adam Smith as a father of the 'greed is good' school of economics as a poor reading of the Scottish philosopher's views.<ref>McCloskey, Deirdre Nansen, Preface, Mullen, Roger, Smith, Craig, & Mochrie, Robbie (eds.) *2023), Adam Smith: The Kirkcaldy Papers, Adam Smith Global Foundation, Kirkcaldy, pp. 7 & 8, Template:Isbn.</ref>

Stigler was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1955,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1959,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1975.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He received the National Medal of Science in 1987

Trivia

• His great uncle Antal Koppány<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> was famous for achieving a draw against chess champion Bobby Fischer who was himself of Hungarian ancestry through his biological father Paul Neményi.

Bibliography

• (1939). "Production and Distribution in the Long Run," Journal of Political Economy, 47(3), pp. 305–327 (arrow-scrollable).
• ([1941] 1994). Production and Distribution Theories: The Formative Period. New York: Macmillan. & Description arrow-scrollable preview.
• (1942) The Theory of Competitive Price. The Macmillan Company.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• (1945). "The Cost of Subsistence," Journal of Farm Economics, 2, pp. 303–314. Arrow-scrollable.
• (1961). "The Economics of Information," Journal of Political Economy, 69(3), pp. 213–225.
• (1962a). "Information in the Labor Market." Journal of Political Economy, 70(5), Part 2, pp. 94–105.
• (1962b). The Intellectual and the Marketplace. Selected Papers, no. 3. Chicago: University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Reprinted in Sigler (1986), pp. 79–88
• (1962c). (With Claire Friedland) "What Can Regulators Regulate," Journal of Law and Economics, pp. 3–21.
• (1962d). "The problem of the Negro," "New Guard" 101(5), pp. 11–12.
• (1963). (With Paul Samuelson) "A Dialogue on the Proper Economic Role of the State." Selected Papers, no. 7. pp. 3–20. Chicago: University of Chicago Graduate School of Business
• (1963). Capital and Rates of Return in Manufacturing Industries. National Bureau of Economic Research, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
• (1965). Template:Cite book<ref>Reviewed at Shepard B. Clough (1965). "Essays in the History of Economics. George J. Stigler," The Journal of Modern History, 37(3), p. 357.Template:Dead link & Herbert M. Bernstein (1967), "Essays in the History of Economics by George J. Stigler," Technology and Culture, 8(1), pp. 136–138. Template:Webarchive</ref>
• (1968). The Organization of Industry. Description & arrow-scrollable preview. Homewood, IL: Richard D. Irwin
• (1970). (With J.K. Kindahl) The Behavior of Industrial Prices. National Bureau of Economic Research, New York: Columbia University Press
• (1971). "The theory of economic regulation." Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science, 2(1), pp. 3–21. (arrow-scrollable).
• (1972). "The Adoption of Marginal Utility Theory," History of Political Economy, 4(2), pp. 571–586. Also below at * (1982b).
• (1975). Citizen and the State: Essays on Regulation
• (1982a). "The Process and Progress of Economics," Nobel Memorial Lecture, 8 December (with bibliography)
• (1982b). Template:Cite book
• (1983). The Organization of Industry
• (1985). Template:Cite book autobiography
• (1986). The Essence of Stigler, K.R. Leube and T.G. Moore, ed. Arrow-scroll to respective essays. Template:ISBN
• (1987). The Theory of Price, Fourth Edition. New York: Macmillan
• (1988). ed. Chicago Studies in Political Economy

For comprehensiveness, see Vicky M. Longawa (1993), "George J. Stigler: A Bibliography," Journal of Political Economy, 101(5), pp. 849–862. Arrow–scrollable.

• (2002). Zingales, L. et al. (Eds.), George Stigler 50 Years Later. Stigler Center.

See also

• Milton Friedman
• Regulatory capture
• Stephen Stigler, his son

References

• Diamond, Arthur M. Jr. (2005). "Measurement, Incentives, and Constraints in Stigler's Economics of Science." The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 12, no. 4637–63.
• Friedman, Milton (1993). "George Stigler: A Personal Reminiscence," Journal of Political Economy 101(5), arrow-scrollable pp. 768–773.
• Friedman, M. (1999). "George J. Stigler, 1911–1991. National Academies Press. A Biographical Memoir.
• Hammond, J. Daniel, and Claire H. Hammond, ed. (2006). Making Chicago Price Theory: Friedman–Stigler Correspondence, 1945–1957. Routledge. 165 pp. Template:ISBN.
• Levy, David M., and Sandra J. Peart. (2008). "Stigler, George Joseph (1911–1991)." The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract.
• Palda, Filip (2016). A Better Kind of Violence: Chicago Political Economy, Public Choice, and the Quest for an Ultimate Theory of Power. Cooper-Wolfling Publishers. Template:ISBN.
• Template:Cite encyclopedia
• The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics (1987).
  • "Stigler, George Joseph" by Peter Newman, v. 4, p. 498.
  • "Stigler as an historian of economic thought" by Thomas Sowell, v. 4, pp. 498–499.
  • "Stigler's contribution to microeconomics and industrial organization," by Richard Schmalense, v. 4, pp. 499–500
• Template:Cite journal

External links

• Template:Cite encyclopedia
• George Stigler's seminal studies of industrial structures, functioning of markets and causes and effects of public regulation.
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• Template:Internet Archive author.
• Template:Nobelprize.