MIT Graduate Networks: The Early Years
23 Pages Posted: 11 Aug 2013
Date Written: July 1, 2013
Abstract
After World War II economists acquired increasing importance in the American society in general. Moreover, the production of economics PhDs in the United States increased substantially and became a less concentrated industry. This period witnessed also the reformulation of the graduate education in economics in the US, informed by the several changes that were occurring in economics: its mathematization, the neoclassicism, the advancement of econometrics, the “Keynesian revolution,” and the ultimate Americanization of economics. The centrality that the MIT graduate program acquired in the postwar period makes it an important case study of the transformation of American economics more generally. Therefore, my aim here is to scrutinize the formative years of the PhD program, mostly the 1940s and 1950s.
Keywords: MIT Economics Department, MIT PhD Program, Paul Samuelson, Robert Solow
JEL Classification: B20, B29, A23
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