Richard Allen Lester

Background

Richard Allen Lester was born on March 1, 1908 Blasdell, New York, United States.

Education

After earning a bachelor's degree from Yale in 1929, Lester entered the graduate economics program at Princeton University, where he was awarded a doctorate in 1936.

Career

For most of his educational career, Lester was associated with Princeton University’s department of economics beginning in 1931 as an instructor. Lester held many other positions, including professor of economics, department chair, and dean of faculty and director of the graduate program at Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. After his retirement in 1974, he was named dean emeritus.

During his career, he also taught at the University of Washington and Duke University. During World War II, Lester served in the Office of the Secretary of War, as well as on the National War Labor Board as an arbitrator. He also served as an adviser to the government on labour and employment issues, including such topics as wages, discrimination, and union disputes. From 1961 to 1963 he was appointed to the President’s Commission on the Status of Women.

Achievements

• Lester gained prominence for his research into employment practices, wages, and the labour movement. In the 1940s, he developed the "range theory of wages," which recognized that individuals in similar jobs were often paid very differently. He used this theory to explain why higher minimum wages might not have the dire employment consequences predicted by their opponents. He assembled evidence from the textile industry showing that minimum wage increases in the 1940s had little systematic effect on employment. His analysis foreshadowed much of the modern research on the minimum wage.
  
  Lester's books include Monetary Experiments: Early American and Recent Scandinavian, Labor and Industrial Relations, As Unions Mature, Reasoning about Discrimination, Wages, Benefits and Company Employment Systems, and Economics of Labor.

Works

More photos

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  • Reasoning about Discrimination

    (In this book Richard Lester develops an analytical basis ...)

  • Monetary experiments 1970
  • Manpower Planning in a Free Society
  • Labor and Industrial Relations 1951
  • As Unions Mature
  • Antibias Regulation of Universities 1974

Connections

Lester was married to Doris N. The couple had three children, Margaret L. Wing, Harriet L. Tarver and Robert A. Lester.

Wife:

Doris N. Lester

Daughter:

Margaret L. Wing

Daughter:

Harriet L. Tarver

Son:

Robert A. Lester

Brother:

John W. Lester