Background

Eli Ginzberg was born on April 30, 1911, in New York, United States. He is the son of Louis Ginzberg and Adele Katzenstein. Eli grew up just a few blocks from Columbia University. His father, a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary, was one of the foremost Talmudic scholars of the 20th century. Their home was a gathering place for renowned scholars, and that atmosphere helped inspire his own ambitions.

Education

Eli Ginzberg attended DeWitt Clinton High School in New York and graduated from Columbia University with a Bachelor of Arts in 1931, a Master of Arts in 1932, and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1934. In 1982 Columbia University awarded him an honorary doctorate of letters.

Career

Upon receiving the doctorate, in 1935 Eli Ginzberg joined the economics faculty of Columbia Graduate Business School, and remained at Columbia throughout his academic career, becoming Professor Emeritus, and special lecturer from 1979. While at Columbia, he also served as a director of the Research Economics and Group Behavior (1939-1942, 1948-1949), A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Economics at Graduate Business School, 1967-1979, a director of the Eisenhower Center for Conservation Human Resources (1950-1990). Ginzberg was also given the responsibility of the director of Revson Fellows Program on the Future of New York City from 1979, the adjunct professor of Health and Social Care at Barnard College (1980-1988), at the College of General Studies, Graduate Department of Economics, the special lecturer at the School of Health and Society, the School of Public Health teaching Political Economy of Health Care, the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the Honorary Faculty Member of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

During World War II, Ginzberg served as a research director for the United Jewish Appeal (1941) and many agencies in the federal government, including the United States War Department as a special assistant to the chief statistician (1942-1944), a member of the Committee on Wartime Requirements for Science and Specialized Personnel (1942), a special assistant to the director of the hospital division of the United States War Department (Surgeon-General's Office) where he coordinated the extensive medical preparations for the D-Day invasion of France in 1944, and he was a member of the Medical Advisory Board to the Secretary of War (1946-1948). Eli also worked as a director of the resources analysis division (1944-1946), a consultant to the United States Department of the Army (1946-1970), the Department of State (1953-1969), Department of Labor (1954-1982), Department of Defense (1964-1971), Department of Commerce (1965-1966, 1979-1980), the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the United States Government Accountability Office (1973-1982), the Executive Office of the President (1942), and the White House, advising eight American presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Jimmy Carter. He also advised General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who became the 13th president of Columbia University in 1948. As a consultant to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on military personnel during the war, Ginzberg wrote a study that helped lead to the removal of 250,000 civilians from the Army payroll and the more efficient deployment of soldiers. At the Five-Power Conference on Reparations for Non-Repatriable Victims of Germany in June 1946, Eli was appointed by President Harry S. Truman as a United States representative and was awarded the Medal for Exceptional Civilian Service from the War Department in 1946. As a consultant to the United States Army from 1946 to 1955, Eli Ginzberg played a huge role in the army's desegregation. He was a medical consultant at the Hoover Commission in 1952 and a chairman of the studies committee at the White House Conference on Children and Youth (1960).

Like his parents, Ginzberg was active in Jewish causes, volunteering for the United Jewish Committee, and serving as a member of the Board of Governors of Hebrew University in Jerusalem (1953-1959), and was a member of the Medical Advisory Board of Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School (1988-1997). Beginning from the 1950s through the 1960s, Eli Ginzberg worked as a director of the Staff Studies at the National Manpower Council, 1951-1961, a chairman of the National Manpower Advisory Committee, 1962-1974, the National Commission for Manpower Policy (1974-1979), and the National Commission for Employment Policy, 1979-1982. In 1974 Ginzberg co-founded the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, which researched the effects of public policy and served as Chairman Board Emeritus from 1982 to 1998.

Ginzberg was hired as a study's director at New York State Hospital (1948-1949), and an adviser to the Commission on Chronic Illness (1950-1953). He was involved with the establishment of the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH), being appointed a member of the National Mental Health Advisory Board (1959-1963), as well as was appointed a member of the National Advisory Allied Health Council (1968-1972).

Eli Ginzberg held the post of a member of the United States Air Force's Science Advisory Board (1969-1973), a chairman of the task force of manpower research of the Department of Defense (1970-1971), a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine from 1972, a member of the Office of Science and Engineering Personnel Advisory Committee, National Academy of Sciences (1984-1991). He was an advisor at the International Institute of Management, Science Center Berlin (1982-1989), a member of the Organization for Rehabilitation through Training Academy Advisory Council (1984-1991), becoming its chairman from 1991, was a member of the Economic Policy Council of the United Nations Association (1984-1987), and a co-chair of the Job Creation Project of the National Committee for Full Employment (1984-1986). Ginzberg was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Biomedical Research from 1988, a member of the Mayoral Commission to Consider the Future of Child Health in New York City (1987-1988) and the Mayoral Commission to Review the Health and Hospitals Corporation (1991-1992). Ginzberg published more than 180 books and hundreds of articles for publications like The New England Journal of Medicine and The Journal of the American Medical Association. Some notable works among these include The Illusion of Economic Stability (1939), The Uneducated (1953), The Ineffective Soldier: Lessons for Management and the Nation (1959), The Human Economy (1976), American Medicine: The Power Shift (1985), and the memoirs My Brother's Keeper (1989) and The Eye of Illusion (1993). Eli Ginzberg died on December 12, 2002, at his home in Manhattan at the age of 91.

Achievements

• Eli Ginzberg is a mentor who taught at Columbia University for more than sixty years. He was a prominent economist who advised eight United States presidents, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, Truman, and Jimmy Carter, the military, and corporations on issues ranging from manpower efficiency to health care. Ginzberg published more on the economics of race than any other nonblack economist of his time. Many of these publications addressed public policy as it affected racial issues. He was a prolific author and editor with over 180 published books and hundreds of articles, which may be categorized into six major themes: the history of economic thought; labor economics; industrial organization; race and economics; autobiography and biography; and health economics. Eli worked hard to desegregate the United States military during the 1950s and was highly valued by the Carter administration for his advice on the health care system during the 1970s.

Works

More photos

• book

  • New York Is Very Much Alive: A Manpower View

    (The first group of chapters deals sequentially with New Y...)

    1973
  • Local Health Policy in Action: The Municipal Health Services Program

    (Drawing upon a comparative analysis of the experiences of...)

    1985
  • Medical Gridlock And Health Reform

    (The early 1990s saw the United States health care system ...)

    1994
  • Medicine And Society: Clinical Decisions And Societal Values

    (This book, based on the Third Conference on Health Policy...)

    1987
  • The Changing U.S. Labor Market

    (This book focuses on the aspects of the changing United S...)

    1994
  • Employing The Unemployed

    (Ten manpower scholars scrutinize the effects of all the v...)

    1980
  • The Unemployed

    (This classic study of the effect of unemployment and of t...)

    1943
  • Urban Medical Centers: Balancing Academic and Patient Care Functions

    (Addressing the effects of the stresses and strains in the...)

    1996
  • From Health Dollars to Health Services: New York City 1965-1985

    (What has been the impact of the passage of Medicare and M...)

    1986
  • Health Services Research: Key to Health Policy

    (Despite the long and distinguished history of health serv...)

    1991
  • The Nation's Children

    (The Nation's Children, a tripartite study of The Family a...)

    1960
  • The Eye of Illusion

    (This second volume of memoir reviews in fascinating detai...)

    1993
  • The Troublesome Presence: American Democracy and the Negro

    (This book is constructed out of the essential stuff of hi...)

    1964
  • The Health Marketplace: New York City, 1990-2010

    (Focusing on changes in the health care sector in New York...)

    2001
  • Tomorrow's Hospital: A Look to the Twenty-First Century

    (Hospital costs and the fees for physicians who treat pati...)

    1996
  • Technology And Employment: Concepts And Clarifications

    (This volume is the first of four publications that will p...)

    1986
  • Adam Smith and the Founding of Market Economics

    (Reflecting his own concerns about the contribution econom...)

    2002
  • New Deal Days: 1933-1934

    (This is an extraordinary, first-hand account of how the U...)

    1997
  • The Illusion of Economic Stability

    (In this classic statement of macroeconomic theory, Ginzbe...)

    1939
  • American Medicine: The Power Shift

    (Ginzberg is to be commended for providing in this book an...)

    1985
  • From Physician Shortage To Patient Shortage: The Uncertain Future Of Medical Practice

    (This book is based on papers that were prepared for the C...)

    1986
  • The Road to Reform: The Future of Health Care in America

    (The book analyzes the development and shortcomings of the...)

    1994
  • A World Without Work: Story of the Welsh Miners

    (Written just before the beginning of World War II, this i...)

    1991
  • Teaching Hospitals and the Urban Poor

    (Academic Health Centers (AHCs) have played a key role in ...)

    2000
  • The American Worker in the Twentieth Century, a History Through Autobiographies

    (Personal accounts of wage earners form the basis of a pen...)

    1963
  • The Manpower Connection: Education and Work

    (This volume constitutes an achievement nowhere duplicated...)

    1974
  • The Limits of Health Reform

    (Surveys attempts at health reform in the United States du...)

    1977
  • Improving Health Care of the Poor: The New York City Experience

    (This book is an in-depth assessment of the extent to whic...)

    1997
  • The Medical Triangle: Physicians, Politicians, and the Public

    (Runaway medical costs, long-term care, market competition...)

    1990
  • Does Job Training Work?: The Clients Speak Out

    (This book summarizes the key findings from the Philadelph...)

    1989
  • My Brother's Keeper

    (This is a deeply personal memoir by the doyen of applied ...)

    1989
  • Keeper of the Law: Louis Ginzberg

    (First published in 1966, this book is an unusual biograph...)

    1966
  • The House of Adam Smith 1934
  • Grass on the Slag Heaps: The Story of the Welsh Miners 1942
  • The Labor Leader 1948
  • A Pattern for Hospital Care: Final Report of the New York State Hospital Study 1949
  • Agenda for American Jews 1950
  • Occupational Choice: An Approach to a General Theory 1951
  • The Uneducated 1953
  • Psychiatry and Military Manpower Policy: A Reappraisal of the Experience in World War II 1953
  • The Negro Potential 1956
  • Effecting Change in Large Organizations 1957
  • Human Resources: The Wealth of a Nation 1958
  • The Ineffective Soldier: Lessons for Management and the Nation 1959
  • Planning for Better Hospital Care 1961
  • Values and Ideals of American Youth 1961
  • The Optimistic Tradition and American Youth 1962
  • Talent and Performance 1964
  • Technology and Social Change 1964
  • The Negro Challenge to the Business Community 1964
  • The Pluralistic Economy 1965
  • Educated American Women: Life Styles and Self-Portraits 1966
  • The Development of Human Resources 1966
  • Manpower Strategy for Developing Countries 1967
  • Middle Class Negro in the White Man's World 1967
  • Manpower Strategy for the Metropolis 1968
  • Business Leadership and the Negro Crisis 1968
  • Urban Health Services: The Case of New York 1971
  • The Great Society: Lessons for the Future 1974
  • The Future of the Metropolis: People, Jobs, Income 1974
  • The Human Economy 1976
  • Health Manpower and Health Policy 1978
  • Good Jobs, Bad Jobs, No Jobs 1979
  • The School/Work Nexus: Transition of Youth from School to Work 1981
  • Beyond Human Scale: Large Corporation at Risk 1985
  • Understanding Human Resources 1985
  • The Skeptical Economist 1987
  • Executive Talent: Developing and Keeping the Best People 1988
  • Home Health Care: Its Role in the Changing Health Care Services Market 1984
  • The U. S. Health Care System: A Look to the 1990s 1985
  • Young People at Risk: Is Prevention Possible? 1988
  • The Financing of Biomedical Research 1989

Politics

Ginzberg published more on economics. But many of his publications addressed public policy as it affected racial issues. Eli Ginzberg advised eight United States presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman to Jimmy Carter as well as General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who became the 13th president of Columbia University in 1948. Eli was highly valued by President Carter's administration for his advice on the health care system during the 1970s. During World War II Ginzberg helped the military vastly improve its efficiency by reducing unneeded civilian staff and advising on the deployment of troops, served the United Jewish Appeal, and many agencies in the federal government, including the White House and the surgeon-general's office. At the Five-Power Conference on Reparations for Non-Repatriable Victims of Germany in June 1946, Ginzberg served as a United States delegate. In the early 1950s, Ginzberg played an important role in the desegregation of the United States Army as an aide to Secretary of the Army Frank Pace Jr. Eli was sent to Europe by the Pentagon to help break the resistance of the Army senior staff to desegregation and later was awarded a Medal for Exceptional Civilian Service in 1946. His first experience with Army segregation had come during the war when he discovered a group of black and white wounded soldiers being treated in separate hospital wards in South Carolina. He ordered that the wards be integrated, leading to a complaint from the state's governor. Ginzberg and his colleagues at the Conservation of Human Resources Project wrote about the problems of the segregated Army in a three-volume study, The Ineffective Soldier: Lessons for Management and the Nation. In 1974, Ginzberg helped found the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, a nonprofit group dedicated to testing rigorously public policy ideas on subjects like welfare and the reintegration of former prison inmates.

Views

Eli Ginzberg focused his research and teaching on labor, health, and race policy issues in economics, the importance of integrating women and racial minorities into the workforce, and supervised studies designed to reduce the waste of manpower. When he was a member of the National Mental Health Advisory Board, the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) funded the nation's first community-based advocacy planning institute in Brooklyn in 1968, a project that employed black Columbia and Yale graduate students in economics and a White House Fellow. Ginzberg's works in industrial organizations contain his most important theoretical contributions. He developed the concept of a pluralistic economy including private, public, and nonprofit sectors, thus adding an explicit third sector to the private and public sectors of the mixed capitalist-socialist economy. The concept of the coequal third sector was the most striking view of the structure of a modern economy since Marx. It spawned still-growing international literature on the economics of nonprofit organizations including most notably hospitals and universities as a macro sector.

Membership

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  American Medical Association , United States

• 

  American Association of University Professors , United States

• Allen O. Whipple Surgical Society , United States

• 

  National Institute of Mental Health , United States

• 

  National Academy of Sciences , United States

• 

  United Nations Economic Policy Council , United States

• 

  Foundation for Biomedical Research , United States

• 

  New York Science Policy Association of the New York Academy of Sciences , United States

• 

  Society Medical Consultant to Armed Forces , United States

• Industrial Relations Research Association , United States

• 

  American Economic Association , United States

• 

  Beta Gamma Sigma , United States

• 

  Phi Beta Kappa , United States

• 

  Eli Ginzberg was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

  American Association for the Advancement of Science , United States

• 

  Eli Ginzberg was a fellow of the American Academy Arts and Sciences.

  American Academy Arts and Sciences , United States

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• "He was sort of the guardian of common sense in the areas of manpower problems and health care." - Robert M. Solow.

Interests

• walking, swimming

Connections

Eli Ginzberg married Ruth Szold on July 14, 1946. She deceased in August 1995. They had three children: Abigail, Jeremy, and Rachel.

Father:

Louis Ginzberg

Mother:

Adele (Katzenstein) Ginzberg

Daughter:

Abigail Ginzberg

Son:

Jeremy Ginzberg

Daughter:

Rachel Ginzberg

late wife:

Ruth Szold

Sister:

Sophie Ginzberg Gould

colleague:

Robert M. Solow

colleague:

Michael M. Davis

colleague:

Walton H. Hamilton

colleague:

Nora Kahn Piore

colleague:

Eveline M. Burns