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Alvin Hansen
Alvin Harvey Hansen (August 23, 1887 – June 6, 1975) was an American economist who taught at the University of Minnesota and was later a chair professor of economics at Harvard University. Often referred to as "the American Keynes", he was a widely read popular author on economic issues, and an influential advisor to the government on economic policy. Hansen helped create the Council of Economic Advisors and the Social Security system. He is best remembered today for introducing Keynesian economics in the United States in the 1930s and 40s.
More effectively than anyone else, he explicated, extended, domesticated, and popularized the ideas embodied in Keynes's The General Theory. He helped develop with John Hicks the IS–LM model (or Hicks–Hansen model), a mathematical representation of Keynesian macroeconomic theory. In 1967, Paul McCracken, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, saluted Hansen stating: "It is certainly a statement of fact that you have influenced the nation's thinking about economic policy more profoundly than any other economist in this century."
Hansen was born in Viborg, South Dakota on August 23, 1887, the son of Niels Hansen, a farmer, and Marie Bergitta Nielsen. Graduating from the nearby Yankton College (closed in 1984) in 1910 with a major in English, he enrolled in the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1913 to study economics under Richard Ely and John R. Commons, from whom he learned to use economics to address pressing social problems. Upon completion of the coursework for the PhD in 1916. Hansen married Mabel Lewis: they had two children.
He taught at Brown University while writing his doctoral dissertation, "Cycles of Prosperity and Depression". Upon completion of the dissertation in 1918 (published in 1921), he moved back west to the University of Minnesota in 1919, where he rose quickly through the ranks of a full teacher in 1923. Subsequently, his Business Cycle Theory (1927) and his introductory text Principles of Economics (1928, with Frederic Garver) brought him to the attention of the wider economics profession. His Economic Stabilization in an Unbalanced World (1932), written with the help of a Guggenheim grant that funded travel in Europe during 1928–1929, established Hansen in the broader circle of public affairs. He was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1932. He also worked for the Economic and Financial Organization of the League of Nations.
In 1937 he received an invitation to occupy the new Lucius N. Littauer Chair of political Economy at Harvard University. His first book at Harvard posed the question Full Recovery or Stagnation? (1938) sketched the outlines of what came to be called the "secular stagnation thesis".
Later, his America's Role in the World Economy (1945) and Economic Policy and Full Employment (1947) made this case to a wider public. Hansen was appointment as special economic adviser to Marriner Eccles at the Federal Reserve Board in 1940 and he was in charge until 1945.
After retiring from active teaching in 1956, he wrote The American Economy (1957), Economic Issues of the 1960s and Problems (1964), and The Dollar and the International Monetary System (1965). He died in Alexandria, Virginia on June 6 of 1975 at the age of 87 years.
His most outstanding contribution to economic theory was the joint development, with John Hicks, of the so-called IS–LM model, also known as the "Hicks–Hansen synthesis." The IS–LM diagram claims to show the relationship between the investment-saving (IS) curve and the liquidity preference-money supply (LM) curve. It is used in mainstream economics literature and textbooks to illustrate how monetary and fiscal policy can influence GDP.
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Alvin Hansen
Alvin Harvey Hansen (August 23, 1887 – June 6, 1975) was an American economist who taught at the University of Minnesota and was later a chair professor of economics at Harvard University. Often referred to as "the American Keynes", he was a widely read popular author on economic issues, and an influential advisor to the government on economic policy. Hansen helped create the Council of Economic Advisors and the Social Security system. He is best remembered today for introducing Keynesian economics in the United States in the 1930s and 40s.
More effectively than anyone else, he explicated, extended, domesticated, and popularized the ideas embodied in Keynes's The General Theory. He helped develop with John Hicks the IS–LM model (or Hicks–Hansen model), a mathematical representation of Keynesian macroeconomic theory. In 1967, Paul McCracken, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, saluted Hansen stating: "It is certainly a statement of fact that you have influenced the nation's thinking about economic policy more profoundly than any other economist in this century."
Hansen was born in Viborg, South Dakota on August 23, 1887, the son of Niels Hansen, a farmer, and Marie Bergitta Nielsen. Graduating from the nearby Yankton College (closed in 1984) in 1910 with a major in English, he enrolled in the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1913 to study economics under Richard Ely and John R. Commons, from whom he learned to use economics to address pressing social problems. Upon completion of the coursework for the PhD in 1916. Hansen married Mabel Lewis: they had two children.
He taught at Brown University while writing his doctoral dissertation, "Cycles of Prosperity and Depression". Upon completion of the dissertation in 1918 (published in 1921), he moved back west to the University of Minnesota in 1919, where he rose quickly through the ranks of a full teacher in 1923. Subsequently, his Business Cycle Theory (1927) and his introductory text Principles of Economics (1928, with Frederic Garver) brought him to the attention of the wider economics profession. His Economic Stabilization in an Unbalanced World (1932), written with the help of a Guggenheim grant that funded travel in Europe during 1928–1929, established Hansen in the broader circle of public affairs. He was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1932. He also worked for the Economic and Financial Organization of the League of Nations.
In 1937 he received an invitation to occupy the new Lucius N. Littauer Chair of political Economy at Harvard University. His first book at Harvard posed the question Full Recovery or Stagnation? (1938) sketched the outlines of what came to be called the "secular stagnation thesis".
Later, his America's Role in the World Economy (1945) and Economic Policy and Full Employment (1947) made this case to a wider public. Hansen was appointment as special economic adviser to Marriner Eccles at the Federal Reserve Board in 1940 and he was in charge until 1945.
After retiring from active teaching in 1956, he wrote The American Economy (1957), Economic Issues of the 1960s and Problems (1964), and The Dollar and the International Monetary System (1965). He died in Alexandria, Virginia on June 6 of 1975 at the age of 87 years.
His most outstanding contribution to economic theory was the joint development, with John Hicks, of the so-called IS–LM model, also known as the "Hicks–Hansen synthesis." The IS–LM diagram claims to show the relationship between the investment-saving (IS) curve and the liquidity preference-money supply (LM) curve. It is used in mainstream economics literature and textbooks to illustrate how monetary and fiscal policy can influence GDP.
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