Historical Figures Codexery

John Kenneth Galbraith

Canadian-American economist and diplomat who served as deputy administrator of the OPA during WWII.

John Kenneth Galbraith was a Canadian-American economist, diplomat, and public official who lived from 1908 to 2006.[1] Under the Kennedy administration, Galbraith held the position of United States Ambassador to India, and he remained a faculty member at Harvard for fifty years.[2][3]

Quick Facts

Order
7th
Ambassador from
United States
Country
India
Took office
April 18, 1961
Left office
July 12, 1963
President
John F. Kennedy
Predecessor
Ellsworth Bunker
Successor
Chester Bowles

Facts from the source article.

Life and work

Galbraith was born on October 15, 1908, in Iona Station, Ontario, to parents of Scottish descent.[4] He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture in 1931, having majored in animal husbandry.[5] During World War II he served as deputy administrator of the Office of Price Administration, tasked with stabilizing prices and rents.[6][7] Galbraith considered his work at the OPA his major life achievement, as prices remained relatively stable during the war.[8]

He taught at Harvard intermittently from 1934 to 1939 and again from 1949, remaining at the university for half a century.[9][10][3] Galbraith married Catherine Merriam Atwater on September 17, 1937, and their marriage lasted 68 years.[11] A Giannini Scholarship in Agricultural Economics, providing $60 per month, enabled him to travel to Berkeley, California, where he earned a master's degree and a Doctor of Philosophy in agricultural economics from the University of California, Berkeley.[5]

What the cited sources add

The same interview noted that Galbraith told Nehru that defense minister V.K. Krishna Menon had to go before military aid could begin.[12] A 2002 Guardian profile stated that Galbraith turned down the chance to be an economic administrator under Kennedy, opting instead for the India ambassadorship.[13] The Harvard Crimson reported that Galbraith retired from Harvard in 1975 and received the "Funniest Professor of the Century Award" from the Harvard Lampoon.[14] The Crimson also stated that he advised five Democratic presidents, including Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.[14]

A 2002 Guardian profile noted that Nobel economics prize-winner Amartya Sen called Galbraith "the most widely read economist in the world".[13] A 2003 interview with Galbraith stated that during the 1962 India-China war, he essentially managed U.S. policy because John F. Kennedy was fully occupied with the missile crisis involving the Soviet Union.[12]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "John Kenneth Galbraith" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Keller, Robert R., "Keynesian and Institutional Economics: Compatibility and Complementarity?", Journal of Economic Issues, 1983, p. 1087–95; Davidson, Paul, "Galbraith and the Post Keynesians", Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, 2005, p. 103–13 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "John Kenneth Galbraith" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "John Kenneth Galbraith", The Economist, May 4, 2006; "John Kenneth Galbraith, Longtime Economics Professor, Dies at 97", Harvard Crimson, April 2006 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "John Kenneth Galbraith" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "John Kenneth Galbraith", Harvard Gazette, February 7, 2008 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "John Kenneth Galbraith" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Galbraith, John Kenneth. The Scotch. Toronto: Macmillan, 1964. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "John Kenneth Galbraith" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Dunn, "The Economic Contributions of John Kenneth Galbraith", Review of Political Economy, 2005, p. 161–209 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "John Kenneth Galbraith" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Rockoff, Hugh (2012) America's Economic Way of War: War and the U.S. Economy from the Spanish–American War to the Persian Gulf War. Cambridge: Cambridge Univers; Digests of Interpretation of the General Maximum Price Regulation. Washington, DC: Office of Price Administration, 1942. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "John Kenneth Galbraith" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Miller, "The Tactics of Retail Price Control", The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1943, p. 497–521 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "John Kenneth Galbraith" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Pressman, Steven, "Leading Contemporary Economists: Economics at the Cutting Edge", Taylor & Francis, 2009, p. 286; Steele, Jonathan, "Last of the old-style liberals", The Guardian Profile: John Kenneth Galbraith, April 5, 2002 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "John Kenneth Galbraith" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "John Kenneth Galbraith, Longtime Economics Professor, Dies at 97", Harvard Crimson, April 2006 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "John Kenneth Galbraith" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Shinagel, Michael, "The Gates Unbarred: A History of University Extension at Harvard, 1910–2009", Harvard University Press, 2010, p. 52 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  11. Wikipedia, "John Kenneth Galbraith" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "John Kenneth Galbraith, 97, Dies; Economist Held a Mirror to Society", The New York Times, April 30, 2006 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  12. Athale, Anil, "India-China war 'accidental:' Galbraith", The Rediff Special, July 28, 2003. facts only, no text reused. rediff.com
  13. Steele, Jonathan, "Last of the old-style liberals", The Guardian Profile: John Kenneth Galbraith, April 5, 2002. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com
  14. "John Kenneth Galbraith, Longtime Economics Professor, Dies at 97", Harvard Crimson, April 2006. facts only, no text reused. thecrimson.com

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article John Kenneth Galbraith (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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