MELTZER, Allan H. 1928-

PERSONAL: Born February 6, 1928, in Boston, MA; son of George B. and Minerva I. (Simons) Meltzer; married Marilyn Ginsburg, August 27, 1950; children: Bruce M., Eric C., Beth D. Education: Duke University, A.B., 1948; University of California, Los Angeles, M.A., 1955, Ph.D., 1958.

ADDRESSES: Home—5830 Marlborough Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15217. Office—Graduate School of Industrial Administration, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Hudson Manufacturing Co., Los Angeles, CA, self-employed, 1948–52; University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, Philadelphia, lecturer in economics, 1956–57; Carnegie-Mellon University, Graduate School of Industrial Administration, Pittsburgh, PA, assistant professor, 1957–61, associate professor, 1961–64, professor of economics, 1964–69, Ford Distinguished Research Professor, 1969–70, Maurice Falk Professor of Economic and Social Science, 1970–80, John M. Olin Professor of Political Economy and Public Policy, 1980–92, professor of political economy and public policy, 1991–97, Allan Meltzer University Professor of Political Economics, 1997–, acting head of department of industrial management, 1960–61 and 1963–64, chair of executive committee of general faculty, 1965–66, chair of Ph.D. committee, Graduate School of Industrial Administration, 1965–69, chair of general faculty, 1966–67, acting dean of Graduate School of Industrial Administration, 1972–73, member of finance committee, board of trustees, 1981. Ford Foundation visiting professor, University of Chicago, 1964–65; visiting professor of economics, Harvard University, 1967–68; visiting professor, Institute of Economic Research, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 1968, Postgraduate School of Economics, Fundacao Getulio Vargas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1976–79, and City University, London, England, 1980–; visiting fellow, Hoover Institution, 1977–78. National Academic Advisory Board, Law and Economics Center, University of Miami, member, 1981–85. Consultant, Joint Economic Committee, United States Congress, 1960–61, United States Treasury Department, 1961–62, House Committee on Banking and Currency, 1963–64, Bank of Japan, 1986–2002, and Economic Advisory Panel, Congressional Budget Office, 1990–95. President's Council of Economic Advisors, member, 1988–89; International Financial Institution, Advisory Commission, United States Congress, chairman, 1999–2000. Member of board of directors, Stillhalter Vision AG, Zurich, Switzerland, 1994, Advanced Materials Group, 1994, Sarah Scaife Foundation, andCommonwealth Foundation.

MEMBER: American Economic Association, American Finance Association, National Association of Business Economists (fellow), Western Economic Association (president, 1985–86; vice president, 1989–90), International Atlantic Economic Association (president, 1999–2000), Phi Beta Kappa (vice president 1981–83), Cosmos Club.

AWARDS, HONORS: Fulbright scholar, 1955–56; Social Science Research Council fellow, 1955–56; Ford faculty research fellow, 1962–63; medal for distinguished professional achievement, University of California, Los Angeles, 1983; Man of the Year in Finance, Pittsburgh, PA, 1995; Lifetime Achievement award, Money Marketeers, New York University, 1997; Distinguished Fellow, American Economic Association, 2002; Irving Kristol Award, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 2003.

WRITINGS:

(With G. Von der Linde) The Dealer Market for Federal Government Securities, Joint Economic Committee, U.S. Congress, U.S. Government Printing Office (Washington, DC), 1960.

(With David J. Ott) Federal Tax Treatment of State and Local Government Securities, Brookings Institution (Washington, DC), 1963.

(With Karl Brunner) An Analysis of Federal Reserve Monetary Policymaking, House Committee on Banking and Currency, U.S. Congress, U.S. Government Printing Office (Washington, DC), 1964.

(With J. F. Weston) Wadsworth Series in Finance, Wadsworth (Belmont, CA), 1966–68.

(Editor, with Karl Brunner) The Phillips Curve and Labor Markets, North-Holland (New York, NY), 1976.

(Editor, with Karl Brunner) Institutional Arrangements and the Inflation Problem, North-Holland (New York, NY), 1976.

(Editor, with Karl Brunner) International Organization, National Policies and Economic Development, North-Holland (New York, NY), 1977.

(Editor, with Karl Brunner) Stabilization of the Domestic and International Economy, North-Holland (New York, NY), 1977.

(Editor, with Karl Brunner) Public Policies in Open Economies, North-Holland (New York, NY), 1978.

(Editor, with Karl Brunner) The Problem of Inflation, North-Holland (New York, NY), 1978.

(Editor, with Karl Brunner) Three Aspects of Policy and Policymaking: Knowledge, Data, and Institutions, North-Holland (New York, NY), 1979.

(Editor, with Karl Brunner) Policies for Employment, Prices, and Exchange Rates, North-Holland (New York, NY), 1979.

(Editor, with Karl Brunner) The Economics of Price and Wage Controls, North-Holland (New York, NY), 1979.

(Editor, with Karl Brunner) Theory, Policy, Institutions: Papers from the Carnegie-Rochester Conferences on Public Policy, North-Holland (New York, NY), 1983.

Monetarism and Contemporary Monetary Policy in the U.S. (in Japanese), Meiji University, Committee of International Programs [Japan], 1985.

Keynes Monetary Theory: A Different Interpretation, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1988.

(Editor, with B. W. Springer and T. G. Moore) Economic Report of the President, 1989, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1989.

(With Karl Brunner) Monetary Economics, Basil Blackwell (New York, NY), 1989.

(With Alex Cukierman and Scott F. Richard) Political Economy, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1991.

(With Karl Brunner) Money and the Economy Issues in Monetary Analysis, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1993.

United States Leadership and Postwar Progress, ICS Press (San Francisco, CA), 1993.

Money, Credit, and Policy, Edward Elgar (Brookfield, VT), 1995.

Expert Papers of the International Financial Institution Advisory Commission, International Financial Institution Advisory Committee, U.S. Government Printing Office (Washington, DC), 2000.

A History of the Federal Reserve, Volume 1: 1913–1951, foreword by Alan Greenspan, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 2002.

Contributor of chapters to numerous books, including Informal Controls and the Market Place, edited by G. Schultz, University of Chicago Press, 1966; The Phenomenon of World Wide Inflation, edited by Meiselman and Laffer, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1975; Exchange Rate Policy, edited by R. A. Batchelor and E. G. Wood, Macmillan, 1982; and Price Stability and Public Policy, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, 1985.

Contributor to proceedings of professional conferences and seminars. Contributor of more than 300 articles to journals of finance and economics. Member of editorial advisory board, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 1969–74, Journal of Economic Literature, 1973–75, and Journal of Monetary Economics, 1974–; associate editor, Journal of Finance, 1974–81; member of editorial board, Policy Review, 1978–; associate editor, Housing Finance Review, 1981–83. Coeditor, Carnegie Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, 1973–, and Carnegie Papers on Political Economy, 1981–86; associate editor, Journal of Financial Services Research, 1986–.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Volume two of A History of the Federal Reserve.

SIDELIGHTS: In November of 2002 Allan H. Meltzer celebrated the publication of the first volume of his projected two-part history of the U.S. banking system: A History of the Federal Reserve, 1913–1951. In this 800-page tome, with a foreword by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Meltzer chronicled the history of America's national banking system, discussing such issues as the bank's failures, the relationship between theory and practice, and modern controversies. A measure of interest in this work is the pace at which it sold—within six months a second printing was necessary. "A History of the Federal Reserve is simply the capstone in a long career of accomplishment," remarked Douglas Clement in the preface to a Region interview with Meltzer published at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Web site.

In 1958 Meltzer earned a doctorate in economics, and began a long collegiate teaching career. During the 1960s he collaborated with Karl Brunner on a series of ground-breaking studies about the role of financial institutions in the economy. Professing that both inflation and deflation are monetary phenomena and can be treated by monetary methods, Meltzer has influenced monetary policy-makers in the United States, Britain, Japan, Switzerland, and Brazil. He has held numerous important positions in the financial world, working for presidents, overseeing congressional committees, developing economic models, advising central banks, and writing hundreds of articles. In 1999 and 2000 he chaired the International Institutions Advisory Commission (known as the Meltzer Commission), which counseled against bailing out private-sector lenders to emerging markets. It also recommended changes in aid to the poorest countries of the world.

In the course of writing A History of the Federal Reserve, 1913–1951, Meltzer studied meeting minutes, correspondence, and other internal documents that were made public for the first time during the 1970s to explain the influence that individuals and events had on the Federal Reserve System. "Allan Meltzer … has delved deeply into the history of the Federal Reserve System, with a result that will add substantially to the discourse on the institution's role and development," wrote Alan Greenspan in the foreword to A History of the Federal Reserve, 1913–1951. "He has reviewed the records of policy discussion at an extraordinary level of detail, and his analysis illuminates the contributions of the many fascinating individuals who shaped the Federal Reserve System we know today." Among the topics discussed are the origin of the bank; the change from a passive to active role in determining monetary policy; the bank's activities during the world wars, the stock market boom, and the world-wide depression of the 1930s. According to Traders reviewer Gregory Bresiger, who called the work "well researched" and "interesting," "to read this book is like reading a kind of Pentagon Papers of American monetary history. It is a litany of failed policies and mistaken notions along with frequent calls for the Fed to obtain greater and greater powers despite its sorry record." Though Meltzer takes a critical position on a number of Federal Bank activities, this is a "well-written and thoroughgoing account," indeed, the "definitive history" of the institution, wrote Library Journal contributor Norm Hutcherson.

In 2003 Meltzer had reached the 1960s in his second volume of A History of the Federal Reserve. Knowing that others were anxiously awaiting the next volume, the seventy-five-year-old professor focused much of his attention on finishing this important part of his life's work.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Meltzer, Allan H., A History of the Federal Reserve, Volume 1: 1913–1951, foreword by Alan Greenspan, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 2002.

PERIODICALS

Barron's, March 3, 2003, Randall W. Forsyth, review of A History of the Federal Reserve, Volume 1: 1913–1951, p. 32.

Choice, June, 1992, review of Political Economy, p. 1587; May, 2003, R. E. Schenk, review of A History of the Federal Reserve, Volume 1, p. 1593.

Economic Journal, November, 1995, review of Money, Credit and Policy, p. 1703.

Journal of Economic Literature, December, 1992, review of Political Economy, p. 2231; December, 1995, review of Money, Credit and Policy, p. 2055.

Library Journal, September 1, 2002, Norm Hutcherson, review of A History of the Federal Reserve, Volume 1, pp. 188-189.

Times Higher Education Supplement, July 18, 2003, Howard Davies, "Shaky Steps to Centre Stage," review of A History of the Federal Reserve, Volume 1, p. 25.

Traders, September 1, 2003, Gregory Bresiger, "The Fed's Depression Policies."

ONLINE

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Web site, http://woodrow.mpls.frb.fed.us/ (December 23, 2003), Douglas Clement, "Interview with Allan H. Meltzer."

Graduate School of Industrial Administration at Carnegie-Mellon University Web site, http://www.gsia.cmu.edu/ (January 15, 2003), Allan H. Meltzer faculty profile.

United Press International Web site, http://www.upi.com/ (December 23, 2003), Marvin Hutchinson, "The World of Allan Meltzer."