Consumer Reports is a product testing and consumer advocacy nonprofit organization based in Yonkers, N.Y., founded in 1936. The Consumer Reports Advocacy records collection assembles materials relating to Consumer Reports' efforts at influencing public policy and addressing a variety of social issues. Materials originated at Consumer Reports main headquarters as well as at regional offices (Southwest Region, West Coast, Washington) more closely focused on advocacy activities. Materials include correspondence, press and publicity releases, clippings, research reports, policy papers, transcripts of testimony given before government and institutional agencies and committees, and other printed material. Social issues represented include antitrust investigations, automobile safety and rollover standards, child car seats, consumer credit, dairy products and food safety, household appliance safety, housing, insurance, lead poisoning, medical care, manufactured and mobile homes, mortgage bank practices, moving industry, pesticides, poverty, product liability, school lunch programs, steel and petroleum industry actions, telecommunications, and toy safety. Acquired as part of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History.

The Consumer Reports Advocacy records collection assembles materials relating to Consumer Reports' efforts at influencing public policy and addressing a variety of social issues. Materials originated at Consumer Reports main headquarters as well as at regional offices (Southwest Region, West Coast, Washington) more closely focused on advocacy activities. Materials include correspondence, press and publicity releases, clippings, research reports, policy papers, transcripts of testimony given before government and institutional agencies and committees, and other printed material. Social issues represented include antitrust investigations, automobile safety and rollover standards, child car seats, consumer credit, dairy products and food safety, household appliance safety, housing, insurance, lead poisoning, medical care, manufactured and mobile homes, mortgage bank practices, moving industry, pesticides, poverty, product liability, school lunch programs, steel and petroleum industry actions, telecommunications, and toy safety. Acquired as part of the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History.

William J. Baumol (1922-2017) was an economist and worked as a professor of economics at Princeton University and New York University. This collection consists of his correspondence, research, writings, his collaborations and professional affiliations, and his work as a painter and sculptor.

The William Baumol papers document his career as an economist and artist. The collection provides an overview of his professional activities, including his research on the cost disease, unbalanced growth, productivity growth, entrepreneurship, increasing returns and international trade, anti-trust policy, contestable markets, market structure, macroeconomic theory, and interest rate and monetary theory, among other topics. Baumol's research and writings on the economics of the arts, undertaken and co-authored with his wife Hilda, are included in the collection.

The collection also documents his collaboration and communication with prominent economists such as Maurice Allais, Gary Becker, Alan Blinder, George Dantzig, Robert Dorfman, Milton Friedman, John Kenneth Galbraith, Ralph Gomory, Frank Hahn, Roy Harrod, John Hicks, Ursula Hicks, Samuel Hollander, Nicholas Kaldor, Harold Kuhn, Abba Lerner, Jacob Marschak, Don Patinkin, Lionel Robbins, Joan Robinson, Paul Samuelson, Ralph Turvey, Jacob Viner, and Edward Wolff, among others. Of note is Baumol's longtime collaboration with, and extensive support received from, Sue Anne Batey Blackman.

Along with his scholarship and writings, the collection documents Baumol's leadership roles at the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and the C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics at New York University, as well as his extensive expert witness and consulting activities for the Federal Communications Commission, Federal Trade Commission, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Joint Economic Committee, and the Senate Judiciary Committee, among others. Baumol's consulting was often done through the companies Alderson and Sessions, Mathematica, and Consultants in Industry Economics. His notable expert witness testimonies revolved around regulation in telecommunications (particularly the ATT monopoly), airline ticket prices and sales practices, pricing of railroad freight shipping, and other topics.

Materials from Baumol's teaching at Princeton and New York University, departmental, and committee work are included in the collection. The collection also contains samples of Baumol's artwork, including sketches and paintings.