Background
ABRAMOVITZ, Moses was born on January 1, 1912 in New York, United States. Son of Nathan Abramovitz and Betty Goldenberg Abramovitz.
(The essays in this book explore the forces behind modern ...)
The essays in this book explore the forces behind modern economic growth and, in particular, the causes of the extraordinary surge of growth since the Second World War. The introductory essay is an extended treatment of the current views of economists on the growth process and its causes. Other essays consider the contributions of capital formation, education, and the changing character of industries and occupations. These essays disclose the central role of technological progress, take up the relations of science, technology, and business, and discuss the conditions that make for investment in research and the widespread exploitation of new knowledge. They show how Japan and Europe had an unusual opportunity after the war to advance rapidly by following in paths of technology and industrial organization pursued earlier by the United States, and how a remarkable set of circumstances and policies governing trade, investment, population migration, and money worked together to sustain rapid and concerted growth for many years.
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ABRAMOVITZ, Moses was born on January 1, 1912 in New York, United States. Son of Nathan Abramovitz and Betty Goldenberg Abramovitz.
AB, Harvard University, 1932. Doctor of Philosophy, Columbia University, 1939. Doctor of Philosophy (honorary), Uppsala University, Sweden, 1985.
Doctor of Philosophy (honorary), University Ancona, Italy, 1992.
Instructor Economics, Tutor Division History Govt, and Economics, Harvard University, 1936-1938. Research Association, National Bureau of Economie Research, New York, New York, United States of America,
1938-1942. Lector Economics, Columbia University, 1940-1942, 1946-1948.
Principal Economics, United States War Production Board, 1942. Principal Economics, United States Office Strategic Services, 1943. Private, United States Army, 1943-1945.
Director Business Cycle Studies, National Bureau of Economie Research, New York, New York, United States of America,
1946-1948. Professor Economics and Cas. Professor American Economics History, Stanford University,
1948-1977.
Visiting Professor, University Pennsylvania,
1955-1956. Economics Adviser, Secretary General, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1962-1963. Managing Editor, Journal of Economic Literature,
1981—.
Coe Professor American Economics History Emeritus, Stanford University, since 1977. Editorial Board, Managing Editor Journal of Economic Literature, 1975-1977, since 1981.
(The essays in this book explore the forces behind modern ...)
Author: Price Theory for a Changing Economy, 1939, Inventories and Business Cycles, 1950, The Growth of Public Employment in Great Britain, 1957, (with Vera Eliasberg) Thinking About Growth, 1989. Also articles. Editor: Capital Formation and Economic Growth, 1955.
Managing editor Journal Economic Literature, 1981-1985.
My earliest work was in price theory. I considered market behaviour and prices when firms operated in a changing environment rather than in stationary conditions. I studied inventories as one method of adapting to change.
This led me to the National Bureau and to work on inventories and business cycles. Using Kuznets’ new Gross National Product estimates, I showed the close cyclical conformity between inventory accumulation and output and helped establish the importance of inventory accumulation in accounting for output fluctuations, especially for output change in the early portions of cyclical expansions and recessions. This work also revealed the disparate behaviour of different kinds of commodity stocks — purchased materials, goods in process and manufacturers’ stocks of goods ready for sale.
Beginning in the 1950s, I studied the economic growth of the industrialised
countries from several angles.
I worked on the ‘long swings’ in growth and helped to show that they were not just supply-side phenomena but rather a complicated interaction between the intensities of resource-use on the one side and the growth of population, labour force and capital stock on the other. An early paper, using Kendrick’s data, helped reveal the importance of the Residual in accounting for longterm growth and pointed to changes in scale, education, and the allocation of labour as factors underlying the large Residual. Later work, with Paul David, uncovered the relatively large role of capital accumulation in nineteenthcentury growth in the United States of America We attribute this to an interaction between the capital-using technological progress of the time and capital accumulation.
Study of the postwar growth of industrialised countries helped to show the strong inverse relation between countries’ initial levels of productivity and their subsequent pace of progress.
Served as lieutenant Army of the United States, 1944-1945. Fellow American Academy Arts and Sciences, American Economic Association (distinguished, president 1980), American Statistical Association. Member American Economic History Association (president 1991-1992), Western Economic Association (president 1988), Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (foreign), Phi Beta Kappa.
Married Carrie Glasser, June 23, 1937. 1 son, Joel Nathan.