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Revisiting Samuelson's Foundations of Economic Analysis Journal of Economic Literature 2015, 53(2), 326–350 http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/jel.53.2.326 Revisiting Samuelson’s Foundations of Economic Analysis† Roger E. Backhouse* Paul Samuelson’s Foundations of Economic Analysis played a major role in defining how economic theory was undertaken for many years after the Second World War. This paper fills out Samuelson’s account of the book’s origins and corrects some details, making clear his debt to E. B. Wilson and establishes that turning the thesis into a book was a long process. The contents of the book and its reception are then reviewed. ( JEL A22, B20, B31) 1. Preliminaries decade witnessed the takeoff in the idea that mathematical modeling was central to 1.1 Samuelson and Modern Economics1 both economic theory and empirical work, two facets of economics that were increas- he formative period in the emergence ingly separated. Whereas some of the most Tof modern economics was the decade prominent theorists of the interwar period centered on the Second World War. This (e.g. Frank Knight, Jacob Viner, Allyn Young, John Maurice Clark, or Edward Chamberlin) were uncomfortable about * University of Birmingham. This research was sup- using what would now be considered basic ported by a three-year Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship to write an intellectual biography of Paul Sam- mathematics, after the Second World War, uelson. I am grateful to the Trust for its support. This economic theory became progressively more article marks the centennial of Samuelson’s birth, on May mathematical. There was a similar transition 15, 1915. He died on December 13, 2009. I am grateful to Juan Carvajalino, Wade Hands, Steven Medema, Janice in empirical work, where there was a change Murray, Robert Solow, and Roy Weintraub and to anony- from the empirical work represented by mous referees for helpful comments on this paper. Wesley Mitchell and Gardner Means—data † Go to http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/jel.53.2.326 to visit the article page and view author disclosure statement(s). intensive, but involving no formal statisti- 1 EBWP—Edwin Bidwell Wilson Papers, Harvard cal inference—to the methods of modern University, HUG4878.203. Quotations are courtesy of econometrics, though limitations of the com- Harvard University Archives. HUP—Archives of Harvard University Press, Foundations of Economic Analysis folder. puting power available to economists held I thank Harvard University Press for providing access to back the spread of formal statistical model- the editorial files from which I quote with their permission. ing and inference for many years. Symbolic PASP—Paul A. Samuelson Papers, Rubenstein Rare Book of this change in economics was the rise to and Manuscript Library, Duke University (followed by Box number and folder name). prominence of the economics department at 326 Backhouse: Revisiting Samuelson’s Foundations of Economic Analysis 327 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology As a graduate student at Harvard, he was (MIT). A department of social science that considered a specialist in a field called in 1940 was still focused on providing service “ mathematical economics,” in which posts teaching for engineers became, by the 1960s, were so difficult to find that his teachers one of the most important economics gradu- feared that he might never land an academic ate schools in the world. Economics at MIT position. At MIT, his mathematical skills were was part of not just an engineering school, more highly valued because every student but the engineering school that had received in the institute was required to study math the lion’s share of wartime science funding and physics, but he moved very reluctantly and, with its massive research laboratories because he wanted to remain in Harvard’s had become one of the preeminent locations much stronger department. Even this oppor- of “big science.”2 tunity presented itself only because a vacancy One of the leading figures in this transition arose at short notice when staff were lost was the winner of the AEA’s first (1947) John through preparations for war (see Backhouse Bates Clark Medal, Paul Anthony Samuelson. 2014). In contrast, by 1948, Samuelson was a As Junior Fellow at Harvard from 1937 to full professor who was being sounded out by 1940, he wrote a series of papers that changed most of the leading departments, including the basis on which theoretical debates were Chicago, which came closer than any other conducted in several fields: consumer the- university to luring him away.4 He committed ory (revealed preference), the theory of himself to MIT, where he spent the rest of international trade (the Heckscher–Ohlin– his long career. According to President James Samuelson model), Keynesian economics, Killian, the success of MIT’s economics and the business cycle (the multiplier-accel- department was due to Samuelson and the erator model). He formalized the problem distinguished economists who found satisfac- of dynamic analysis in economics, bringing tion in being his colleagues.5 these ideas together, along with a codification Clearly, other works were important in the of welfare economics, in a book, Foundations rise of mathematical modeling in econom- of Economic Analysis (1947). For decades, ics, notably John Hicks’s Value and Capital this book was a core graduate microeco- (1939), which introduced many economists nomics textbook and, for many economists, to more formal general equilibrium analy- defined the way to do economic theory. For sis, and The Theory of Games and Economic example, in 1960, having read in one of his Behavior by John von Neumann and Oskar textbooks that it was “the most important Morgenstern (1944). However, though The book in economics since the war,” Robert Theory of Games and Economic Behavior E. Lucas (1995) taught himself economic was well known among mathematical econ- theory by reading its early chapters, apply- omists, game theory did not acquire its pres- ing the techniques he learned from it to the ent status in the discipline until much later, problems that Milton Friedman posed in his and when it did, it was the noncooperative Chicago price theory course.3 theory of John Nash to which most econo- Samuelson’s own career illustrates the mists turned, rather than to von Neumann’s way economics changed during this period. and Morgenstern’s model of coalition formation. And though Hicks might have 2 On economics at MIT, see the articles in Weintraub (2014a), in particular Cherrier (2014). 4 See Maas (2014). Harvard did not try because they 3 Friedman’s treatment of these problems was largely knew he would prefer to stay at MIT. intuitive and graphical. 5 Killian (1985). 328 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. LIII (June 2015) been first, it was Samuelson’s Foundations, War and partly because of the anti-theory with its focus on providing the mathematical prejudices of Harold Burbank, the Head of and conceptual tools with which comparative Harvard’s economics department, on whose statics results could be generated, that came desk it sat gathering dust before being sent to define the way most economic theorizing to Harvard University Press. was done. Samuelson’s best-selling elemen- This paper reexamines the origins tary textbook (1948), the increasing promi- of Foundations using evidence from nence of the MIT economics department, Samuelson’s papers (archived at Duke his prominent involvement in debates over University) and the archives of the public policy, and a succession of widely cited Harvard Economics Department and theoretical innovations all served to confirm Harvard University Press. Samuelson’s own his dominance of economics worldwide, and account remains indispensable, but needs with it the status of Foundations.6 In consid- reexamination. As people reflect on past ering the origins of Foundations, we come events, points that seem significant in view closer to seeing the origins of modern, tech- of their later interpretation of their own lives nical economics than we do by looking at any get elaborated and modified so that their other work. stories become more coherent (see Tribe 1997, pp. 6–9; Weintraub 2007). Samuelson 1.2 “How Foundations Came to Be” was no exception to this rule. He was a great Given the importance of the book, it is raconteur who was forever recalling events not surprising that when Samuelson offered from his own past. The inevitable result was “How Foundations Came to Be,” an abridged that the details he recalled most clearly were version of a paper first published in German those that fit his own perception of his life. (1997), John Macmillan immediately A good illustration is provided by the accepted it for the JEL, telling Samuelson, account of the publication process of “How one of the great economics books Foundations in “How Foundations Came to came to be written makes a wonderful JEL Be.” Late in life, Samuelson paid much more topic.”7 In this article, Samuelson reflected attention than he had earlier to the antisem- on the book’s origins as a Harvard PhD the- itism that pervaded Harvard in the 1930s, sis (1940) and the reasons for the long delay department chair Harold Burbank heading a between his first having the main ideas and “roll of dishonor” he sent to his friend Henry the book’s eventual publication. The thesis Rosovsky in 1989.8 That animosity could was not written until 1940 because he was explain why he blamed Burbank for holding precluded from working towards a higher up publication of Foundations, for trying to degree by the conditions of his junior fel-
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