Charles P. Kindleberger
Encyclopedia
Charles Poor "Charlie" Kindleberger (October 12, 1910 – July 7, 2003) was a historical economist
and author
of over 30 books. His 1978 book Manias, Panics, and Crashes, about speculative stock market bubble
s, was reprinted in 2000 after the dot-com bubble
. He is well known for hegemonic stability theory
.
on October 12, 1910. He graduated from Kent School
in 1928, University of Pennsylvania
in 1932, and received a Ph.D.
from Columbia University
in 1937. He died on July 7, 2003 in Cambridge, MA. He was married to the late Sarah Miles Kindleberger for 59 years, and was survived by four children: Charles P. Kindleberger III of St. Louis
, MO; Richard S. Kindleberger
of Cambridge, MA (a reporter at the Boston Globe); Sarah Kindleberger of Lincoln, MA; and E. Randall Kindleberger of Machias, ME.
Although mainly an academic at MIT after 1948, Kindleberger during the course of his life worked for several American institutions, such as the Federal Reserve Bank of New York
(1936–1939), the Bank of International Settlements in Switzerland
(1939–1940), and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
(1940–1942).
Kindleberger was a leading architect of the Marshall Plan
. In 1945-1947 he served at the Department of State (Acting Director, Office of Economic Security Policy), and shortly (1947–1948) as counselor for the European Recovery Program.
As a 'historical' economist (or economic historian), Kindleberger relied on narrative
exposition and knowledge of history
rather than mathematical models to prove his point. His book, Manias, Panics, and Crashes is still required reading at many Masters of Business Administration (MBA) programs in the United States.
Kindleberger described his around-the-clock work to develop and launch the Marshall Plan
with singular passion in a 1973 interview.
'We were conscious of a great sense of excitement about the plan. Marshall
himself was a great, great man—funny, odd but great—Olympian in his moral quality. We'd stay up all night, night after night. The first work ever done that I know about in economics on computers used the Pentagon's computers at night for the Marshall Plan. I had a tremendous sense of gratification from working so hard on it,' Kindleberger said.
Kindleberger was on familiar terms with noted economists and was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania
and Columbia University
(A.M., Ph. D.), later rising to the eminent position of Ford International Professor of Economics at MIT.
. Blaming the peculiar length and depth of the Depression on the hesitancy of the US in taking over leadership of the world economy when Britain was no longer up to the role after WWI, he concludes that 'for the world economy to be stabilized, there has to be a stabilizer—one stabilizer', by which, in the context of the interwar years at least, he means the United States. In the last chapter 'An Explanation of the 1929 Depression' Kindleberger lists the five responsibilities the US would have had to assume in order to stabilize the world economy:
Kindleberger was highly sceptical of Friedman and Schwartz's monetarist view of the causes of the Depression, seeing it as too narrow and perhaps dogmatic, and dismisses what he characterised as Samuelson's 'accidental' or 'fortuitous' interpretation out of hand. The World in Depression was praised by John Kenneth Galbraith
as 'the best book on the subject'.
Economic history
Economic history is the study of economies or economic phenomena in the past. Analysis in economic history is undertaken using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and by applying economic theory to historical situations and institutions...
and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
of over 30 books. His 1978 book Manias, Panics, and Crashes, about speculative stock market bubble
Stock market bubble
A stock market bubble is a type of economic bubble taking place in stock markets when market participants drive stock prices above their value in relation to some system of stock valuation....
s, was reprinted in 2000 after the dot-com bubble
Dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...
. He is well known for hegemonic stability theory
Hegemonic stability theory
Hegemonic Stability Theory is a theory of international relations. Rooted in research from the fields of political science, economics, and history, HST indicates that the international system is more likely to remain stable when a single nation-state is the dominant world power, or hegemon...
.
Life
Kindleberger was born in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
on October 12, 1910. He graduated from Kent School
Kent School
Kent School is a private, co-educational college preparatory school in Kent, Connecticut, USA. The Reverend Frederick Herbert Sill, Order of the Holy Cross, established the school in 1906 and it retains its affiliation with the Episcopal Church of the United States.Students at Kent come from more...
in 1928, University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
in 1932, and received a Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in 1937. He died on July 7, 2003 in Cambridge, MA. He was married to the late Sarah Miles Kindleberger for 59 years, and was survived by four children: Charles P. Kindleberger III of St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
, MO; Richard S. Kindleberger
Richard Kindleberger
Richard Kindleberger was an American newspaper reporter and editor who worked at the Boston Globe.-Early life:...
of Cambridge, MA (a reporter at the Boston Globe); Sarah Kindleberger of Lincoln, MA; and E. Randall Kindleberger of Machias, ME.
Work
His earliest book was International Short-Term Capital Movements (1937).Although mainly an academic at MIT after 1948, Kindleberger during the course of his life worked for several American institutions, such as the Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is one of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks of the United States. It is located at 33 Liberty Street, New York, NY. It is responsible for the Second District of the Federal Reserve System, which encompasses New York state, the 12 northern counties of New Jersey,...
(1936–1939), the Bank of International Settlements in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
(1939–1940), and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Federal Reserve System
The Federal Reserve System is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913 with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, largely in response to a series of financial panics, particularly a severe panic in 1907...
(1940–1942).
Kindleberger was a leading architect of the Marshall Plan
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...
. In 1945-1947 he served at the Department of State (Acting Director, Office of Economic Security Policy), and shortly (1947–1948) as counselor for the European Recovery Program.
As a 'historical' economist (or economic historian), Kindleberger relied on narrative
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
exposition and knowledge of history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
rather than mathematical models to prove his point. His book, Manias, Panics, and Crashes is still required reading at many Masters of Business Administration (MBA) programs in the United States.
Kindleberger described his around-the-clock work to develop and launch the Marshall Plan
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...
with singular passion in a 1973 interview.
'We were conscious of a great sense of excitement about the plan. Marshall
George Marshall
George Catlett Marshall was an American military leader, Chief of Staff of the Army, Secretary of State, and the third Secretary of Defense...
himself was a great, great man—funny, odd but great—Olympian in his moral quality. We'd stay up all night, night after night. The first work ever done that I know about in economics on computers used the Pentagon's computers at night for the Marshall Plan. I had a tremendous sense of gratification from working so hard on it,' Kindleberger said.
Kindleberger was on familiar terms with noted economists and was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
and Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
(A.M., Ph. D.), later rising to the eminent position of Ford International Professor of Economics at MIT.
The World in Depression
His 1973 and 1986 book The World in Depression 1929-1939 (University of California Press, 1986 [Revised and Enlarged Edition]) advances an idiosyncratic, internationalist view of the causes and nature of the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. Blaming the peculiar length and depth of the Depression on the hesitancy of the US in taking over leadership of the world economy when Britain was no longer up to the role after WWI, he concludes that 'for the world economy to be stabilized, there has to be a stabilizer—one stabilizer', by which, in the context of the interwar years at least, he means the United States. In the last chapter 'An Explanation of the 1929 Depression' Kindleberger lists the five responsibilities the US would have had to assume in order to stabilize the world economy:
- maintaining a relatively open market for distress goods;
- providing countercyclicalCountercyclicalCountercyclical is a term used in economics to describe how an economic quantity is related to economic fluctuations. It is the opposite of procyclical. However, it has more than one meaning.-Meaning in policy making:...
, or at least stable, long-term lending; - policing a relatively stable system of exchange rates;
- ensuring the coordination of macroeconomic policies;
- acting as a lender of last resortLender of last resortA lender of last resort is an institution willing to extend credit when no one else will. The term refers especially to a reserve financial institution, most often the central bank of a country, intended to avoid bankruptcy of banks or other institutions deemed systemically important or 'too big to...
by discounting or otherwise providing liquidity in a financial crisis.
Kindleberger was highly sceptical of Friedman and Schwartz's monetarist view of the causes of the Depression, seeing it as too narrow and perhaps dogmatic, and dismisses what he characterised as Samuelson's 'accidental' or 'fortuitous' interpretation out of hand. The World in Depression was praised by John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth "Ken" Galbraith , OC was a Canadian-American economist. He was a Keynesian and an institutionalist, a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism...
as 'the best book on the subject'.
Works
- Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, 5th edition)
- World Economic Primacy: 1500 - 1990 (Oxford University Press, 1996)
- The World in Depression: 1929-1939 (University of California Press, 1973)
- "The Benefits of International Money." Journal of International Economics 2 (Nov. 1972): 425-442.
- American Business Abroad (New Haven, London, 1969)
- Europe's Postwar Growth. The Role of Labor Supply (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1967)
- Europa and the Dollar (Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, 1966)
- Foreign Trade and the National Economy (Yale, 1962)
- International Economics (Irwin, 1958)
- Economic Development (New York, 1958)
- International Short-term Capital Movements (NY: Columbia University Press, 1937)
Further reading
- Peter TeminPeter TeminDr. Peter Temin is a widely cited economist and economic historian, currently Gray Professor Emeritus of Economics, MIT and former head of the Economics Department....
(2008). "Kindleberger, Charles P. (1910–2003)." The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd ed. Abstract.
External links
- Short Biography at MIT's online newspaper
- MIT's obituary
- Historical Economics - Art or Science? (1990) Online Book by Charles P. Kindleberger