| December 16, 1954 THE MOVE TO YALE
New Haven, Conn., December 15 The famous Cowles Commission for
Research in Economics, now located in Chicago, Illinois, will become associated with, Yale
University starting next July 1.
The commission, which will become a functional part of Yale's Department of Economics,
has attracted world-wide attention for the scholarly economic theories developed by its
members since it was organized in 1932.
President A. Whitney Griswold, of Yale, said in his announcement today that when the
move is completed the commission's name will be changed to the Cowles Foundation for
Research in Economics at Yale University.
In a commentary on its 20-year research report, Kenneth E. Boulding, Professor of
Economics at the University of Michigan, wrote recently that "when the history of
economic thought in the twentieth century comes to be written, the work of the members of
the Cowles Commission will occupy a large part of the book."
Two leading members of the commission will join it in its move to Yale. Tjalling C.
Koopmans, Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago and Director of Research for
the Cowles Commission from 1948 to 1954, will become a permanent member of the Yale
faculty starting next July 1.He has been appointed Professor of Economics at Yale.
Jacob Marschak, Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago since 1942, and
Director of Research of the Cowles Commission from 1942 to 1948, will also join the Yale
faculty as Professor of Economics.
President Griswold also announced that James Tobin, Associate Professor of Economics at
Yale, will become Director of Research for the Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics
at Yale University. He emphasized. that the Foundation will continue its publication of
research monographs in its new location here.
The Cowles Commission, which has spearheaded the movement to relate theories of
economics to mathematical and statistical studies, was organized at Colorado Springs,
Colorado in 1932 with financial support from Alfred. Cowles, Yale Class or 1913, and other
members of his family.
In 1939, when Mr. Cowles moved to Chicago, it was decided to move the headquarters or
the commission there, partly because of the difficulty in attracting topflight economists
to a location so remote as Colorado. At the same time a relationship was established
between the commission and the University of Chicago.
Lloyd G. Reynolds, Sterling Professor of Economics and Chairman of the Department of
Economics at Yale, in commenting on this new move of the Cowles Commission to Yale, said
that "in a sense, this very important center for the study of economics is returning
home, since Mr. Cowles himself is a Yale alumnus."
The Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics at Yale will be governed by an
Executive Committee consisting of the following members: Mr. Tobin as Chairman; Harold W.
Guthrie, Instructor in Economics at Yale, Secretary; Mr. Reynolds; Mr. Koopmans; Mr.
Marschak, Mr. Cowles; and Edgar S. Furniss, Provost of Yale University, ex officio member.
In addition to serving as Secretary of the Executive Committee, which will approve all
plans, policies, budgetary matters and appointments of the Cowles Foundation, Mr. Guthrie
will serve as Assistant Director of Research for the Foundation.
All members of the Foundation's Research Staff will become members of Yale's Department
of Economics, according to Professor Reynolds. He said, that three other economists now on
the Commission's research staff in addition to Professor Koopmans and Professor Marschak
are expected to come to Yale as members of the Foundation and as members of the
University's Department of Economics.
Headquarters of the 24-year-old Econometric Society, which publishes the quarterly
journal, Econometrica, will accompany the Cowles Foundation to New Haven.
Richard Ruggles, Professor of Economics at Yale, will become Secretary of the
Econometric Society. Mrs. Ruggles, who has a Ph.D. in economics, will be Associate
Secretary of the Society.
The Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics at Yale, together with the Econometric
Society, will be housed in an old New Haven mansion, the Dana House at 30 Hillhouse
Avenue, which is only a few steps away from the offices of the Yale Economics Department.
Mr. Reynolds, explaining that the Cowles Foundation will give new impetus to the
research activities of the Yale Economics Department, said that many advantages will
accrue to the University from the new arrangement:
| It will bring to Yale many internationally-known economists, a number of whom will
lecture and teach. It will bring to Yale several excellent young economists who will
contribute to the research now in progress in the University.
It will strengthen Yale's graduate teaching program in all branches of economic theory,
mathematical economics and statistics.
It will attract graduate students of high caliber to Yale. Thus, it will strengthen
Yale's Department of Economics on the graduate and undergraduate level. |
In his review of the Cowles
Commission's 20-year research report, published in 1952 under the title,
"Economic Theory and Measurement," Professor Boulding, of Michigan, writes:
"Occasionally there spring up in the academic community extraordinary centers of
ideas and research of such life and vitality that their influence reaches out into the
whole world of the intellect. Such, for instance, was the group of economists at the
University of Vienna at the close of the last century, or the group at Cambridge
University between the world wars.
"It is becoming more and more clear," he continued, "that the Cowles
Commission and the leaders of the Econometric Society constitute such a group in the
present day, in the sense that no economist anywhere in the world can afford to remain
completely ignorant of the ferment of ideas, the new research techniques and new points of
view which are constantly proceeding from the activities" of the Commission.
"Econometrics has been one of the most significant 'growing points' of economics
in the past 20 years," he pointed out. "It is not however a 'school' in the
sense of the 'Austrian School', contending for the supremacy of its theoretical position
against other schools, so much as a 'movement', finding its bond of unity in the common
skills and methods of its adherents rather than in any uniformity of theoretical position.
The nerve center of this world movement is unquestionably the Cowles Commission," he
said. |