Background
Kaysen, Carl was born on March 5, 1920 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Son of Samuel and Elizabeth (Resnick) Kaysen.
Kaysen, Carl was born on March 5, 1920 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Son of Samuel and Elizabeth (Resnick) Kaysen.
Bachelor of Arts University Pennsylvania, 1940. Master of Arts, Doctor of Philosophy Harvard University, 1947, 1953.
Researcher National Bureau Economic Research, 1940-1942. Economist Office of Strategic Services, 1942. Member faculty Harvard University, 1950—1966.
Junior fellow Harvard University (Society Fellows), 1947-1950, assistant professor economics, 1950-1955, associate professor, 1955-1957, professor, 1957-1966, Lucius N. Littauer professor political economy, 1964-1966. Associate dean Harvard University (Graduate School Public Administration), 1960-1966. Director Institute Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, 1966-1976, professor, 1966-1977.
David W. Skinner professor political economy Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1977-1990, director program in science, technical and society, 1981-1987, professor emeritus, 1990—2010. Clerk to Judge C. E. Wyzanski, United States District C., 1950-1952. Deputy special assistant to President Kennedy for national security affairs, 1961-1963.
Member Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. Vice chairman, director research Sloan Commission on Government and Higher Education. Faculty lecturer London School of Economics, 1956.
Haynes lecturer California Institute of Technology, 1966. Stafford Little lecturer Princeton University, 1968. Oliver W. Holmes lecturer Harvard Law School, 1969.
Paley lecturer Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1970. Godkin lecturer Harvard University, 1976. Bernard Brodie lecturer, University of California at Los Angeles, 1994.
My work in economics contains three elements. The first is the study of public policy in relation to monopoly and competition, especially the antitrust laws. My contribution has been to elaborate and refine the idea of market power, apply it to the study of specific markets and also use the concept as a basis for analysis of the United States laws on competition and monopoly and their administration.
My books on the shoe-machinery industry and antitrust laws, and nearly half my published articles in economic journals, deal with this area. They include several relating the concept of market power to more theoretical models of monopoly, oligopoly, and competition, especially in a dynamic context. The second area of contribution is the study of business institutions from a socio-political, as well as an economic, point of view.
In this area falls the book of which I was a coauthor, The American Business Creed, and several articles on the modern corporation and corporate capitalism.
Finally, I have looked at the activities of basic research and higher education from both an economic and broader point of view. I have argued that the economists’ traditional perspective on higher education as an investment in human capital is too narrow to capture many important features of the educational system. To understand the structure and functioning of higher education and see the interplay between its social and private benefits and costs it must also be seen as a consumption activity, a class and status marker, and an institutional structure with its own politics.
Similar problems of social versus individual benefits and costs arise in the economics of basic research, and I have examined how far economics goes and fails to go in explaining what a society spends on research, how the activities are performed, and the fruits distributed.
Honorary Life trustee University Pennsylvania Served to captain air intelligence Army of the United States, 1942-1945. Member American Philosophical Society, American Academy Arts and Sciences, Phi Beta Kappa. Clubs: Century (New York City).
Married Annette Neutra, September 13, 1940 (deceased 1990). Children: Susanna, Laura. Married Ruth Butler, 1994.