Mitchell was a professor at Columbia and one of the first directors of the New School for Social Research (from 1919 to 1931).
Mitchell founded the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in 1920 in order to pursue quantitative studies of the U.S. business cycle for which that organization has become renowned.
Although he followed the Institutionalists in eschewing agent-based theory, W.C. Mitchell's work was full of theoretical insights about society and the economy and he was a profound scholar of economic theory - as exemplified in his masterful lecture notes (1967).
The American economistWesleyClairMitchell (1874-1948) was one of the most prominent contributors to the study of business cycles and was also among those who first recognized the importance of sound empirical research in economics.
Born on Aug. 5, 1874, in Rushville, III., Wesley C. Mitchell was the eldest son of a Civil War veteran.
Mitchell served by presidential appointment on national committees on social trends (1929-1933), cost of living (1944), and others.
Amazon.com: The Backward Art of Spending Money: Books: Wesley Mitchell,Eli Ginzberg,Wesley Clair Mitchell,a new preface ...(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-11)
Nearly 85 years ago, WesleyClairMitchell, the acknowledged leader of American economists during the first half of this century, wrote: "Important as the art of spending is, we have developed less skill in its practice than in the practice of making money.
Ginzberg's essay on Mitchell, written in 1931 and published for the first time in 1997, serves as an appropriate introduction to this new edition.
WesleyClairMitchell (1874-1948) held major teaching posts at the University of California and Columbia University.
Rushville, Ill. He received his Ph.D. (1899) from the Univ. of Chicago, where he studied under Thorstein Veblen and John Dewey, and he taught at several institutions, including the Univ. of California, Columbia, and the New School for Social Research.
He also served on many government committees, was chairman of the President's Committee on Social Trends (1929–33), and helped found the National Bureau of Economic Research.
One of the most eminent American economists, Mitchell questioned many of the tenets of orthodox economics and turned toward an institutional analysis based on behaviorist psychology.
Veblen, John Commons and WesleyMitchell, was for a brief period effectively the orthodoxy in the United States, sandwiched between the fall of the American apologists in the early 1900s and the
During this time, they withdrew from confrontation with the Neoclassical mainstream by concentrating on what became one of their major legacies: the empirical measurement of business cycles and the compilation of records of economic history.
Wesley C. Mitchell founded the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) for precisely that purpose and, under his leadership, many economists concentrated on these laborious tasks - leaving us a quantitative legacy which lasts to this day.
True False WesleyClairMitchell studied economics at the University of Chicago and grounded all his work with empirical data.
False WesleyClairMitchell concluded economic theory could be explained by logical reactions to problems during that period of time.
True False Mitchell’s explanation of the business cycle, which he believed to be a self-generating cycle, is based on how businesses react to changing profit levels.
I pushed Mitchell very hard in class, out of class, as to what he thought was going on with the worst depression the country had, and he kept saying to me, "I haven't studied it enough, and I don't know.
Mitchell its first top distinction when they went into giving distinctions and J.M. Clark was the second prize winner.
Mitchell made a real fight for my soul, because he thought that was silly for me to be involved with economic theory.
For years Burns was associated with the National Bureau of Economic Research where, with WesleyClairMITCHELL, he did pathbreaking studies in the analysis of business cycles.
Mitchell taught at the universities of Chicago (1901-02) and California (1903-12), at Harvard University (1907-08), and at Columbia University from 1913 until his retirement in 1944.
Bibliography: Burns, Arthur F., ed., WesleyClairMitchell: The Economic Scientist (1952); Mitchell, Lucy, Two Lives (1953).
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Most neoclassical economists believe that WesleyClairMitchell had no theory of the business cycle; according to Milton Friedman, "Mitchell is generally considered primarily an empirical scientist rather than a theorist" (Burns 1952, 237).
The reason is that Mitchell's theory was not a neoclassical theory, so in their view, it was not a theory.
Whereas all neoclassical theory is stated in terms of eternally true laws, Mitchell stated an evolutionary theory.
Nearly eighty-five years ago, WesleyClairMitchell, the acknowledged leader of American economists during the first half of this century, wrote: "Important as the art of spending is, we have developed less skill in its practice than in the practice of making money.
Common sense forbids our wasting dollars earned by irksome efforts; and yet we are...
Economic essays in honor of WesleyClairMitchell, presented to him by his former students on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday.
In this accessible study of the business cycle, Howard Sherman makes a powerful case that recessions and painful involuntary unemployment are endogenous to capitalism.
Drawing especially on the work of WesleyClairMitchell, Karl Marx, and John M. Keynes, Sherman explains why the nature of the business cycle produces serious economic loss and misery during its contraction phase, just as it produces growth in its expansion phase.
The integration of empirical evidence and relevant theory is unusually thorough and interesting, and Sherman's use of WesleyClairMitchell's work is especially welcome."--John E. King, La Trobe University
The National Bureau of Economic Research Has a Problem: Archive Entry From Brad DeLong's Webjournal(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-11)
Its entire methodology--inherited from WesleyClairMitchell and Arthur Burns back in the mists of time--is based on the belief that production, income, employment, and sales all move together relative to their long-run trends in a "business cycle." So what do they do when employment behaves differently?
It's not clear, because it's not something that W.C. Mitchell expected to see happen very often at all.
I think that they should shift to an explicitly unemployment and potential output-based three-art classification: recession (unemployment rising so rapidly that production is falling); sub-normal expansion (unemployment rising slowly even though production is rising slowly); and above-normal expansion (unemployment falling).
Mitchell, WesleyClair - ENCYCLOPEDIA - The History Channel UK or LOGIN
He also served on many government committees, was chairman of the President's Committee on Social Trends (1929-33), and helped found the National Bureau of Economic Research.
