Background
Mason, Edward Sagendorph was born on February 22, 1899 in Clinton, Iowa, United States. Son of Edward Luther and Kate (Sagendorph) Mason.
Mason, Edward Sagendorph was born on February 22, 1899 in Clinton, Iowa, United States. Son of Edward Luther and Kate (Sagendorph) Mason.
Bachelor of Arts Kansas, 1919. AM, Harvard University, 1920. Doctor of Philosophy, Harvard University, 1925.
Doctor of Laws, Harvard University, 1956. BLitt, Oxford University, 1923. Doctor of Letters (honorary), Williams College, 1948.
Doctor of Laws (honorary), Yale University, 1964. Doctor of Laws (honorary), Concord College, 1971.
Instructor Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1923-1927, assistant professor economics, 1927-1932, associate professor, 1932-1937, professor economics, 1937-1992, George F. Baker professor economics, 1958-1961, Thomas W. Lamont University professor, 1961-1969, Lamont professor emeritus, dean Graduate School Public Administration, 1947-1958. Economic consultant Department Labor, 1938-1939, Defense Commission, 1940-1941, Office of Strategic Services, Washington, 1941-1945. Deputy to assistant secretary state charge economic affairs, 1945.
Economic consultant Department State, 1946-1947. Chief economic adviser Moscow Conference, 1947. Member Advisory Committee on Management Improvement to Assist in Improving Government Organization.
Member materials Policy Commission, 1951-1952. Chairman advisory committee economic development Agency for International Development. Consultant World Bank.
Chairman Sloan Foundation commission on cable communications.
(Boston 1883 Franklin Press. Octavo, 20pp., original print...)
I came into economics largely through the influence of a teacher at the University of Kansas, John Ise. He persuaded me to go to Harvard for graduate work and I spent one year there before going on to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. At Oxford my supervisor was Francis Y. Edgeworth.
I came back to Harvard to get a Doctor of Philosophy and started teaching there in 1923. I finished my teaching career at Harvard in 1969, after 46 years, but with many interruptions for government service, consulting and administrative assignments. Early in my career I had a great deal of difficulty in deciding where my interests lay.
I was interested both in the European socialist movement and in the relations of government to business. The latter interest won out and from 1930 to the early 1950s most of my teaching and writing was in industrial organisation, the structure of firms, regulation and, in general, government-business relations. I would say that my contributions, if any, dealt with the relations between the structure of industrial markets and the behaviour of firms, and in the roles of law and economics in shaping public policy.
The war years also turned my attention away from industrial organisations and toward international affairs.
From the early 1950s on I spent a good deal of time as a member of Presidential commissions dealing with foreign aid, and as a consultant to the Agency for International Development and the World Bank. Although I have written and published extensively in the field of economic development, I don’t think I can say that I have made significant contributions to the theory of the subject. Most of my writing was concerned with the analysis of economic policies and with the institutional and organisational characteristics of development.
And as an entrepreneur and administrator, my influence has probably been more important than as a scholar. As Dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Public Administration, I organised advisory missions to the Planning Commission of Pakistan and to the Plan Organisation of Iran. This led to the formation of the Harvard Development Advisory Service
which later became the Harvard Institute, for International Development I also began the closely associated Public Service Training Program for government officials from less developed countries which was given my name when I retired.
I regard my contribution to the Harvard Trust and to the Edward S. Mason Program as perhaps my most important contribution to the field of economic development.
Board directors International Council for Educational Development, Resources for the Future, Asian Development Corporation. Member American Philosophical Society, American Economic Association (past president), Royal Economic Society London, American Academy Arts and Sciences, The Saturday Club, Phi Beta Kappa, Delta Sigma Rho.
Married Marguerite Sisson La Monte, April 4, 1930. Children: Robert La Monte (stepson), Jane Carroll Mason Manasse, Edward Half-Life.