This collection documents the growth of Meier's career from a student of economics to an academic economist. It personal and professional correspondence; lectures; course notes taken as a student or developed for his lectures on international economic relations; syllabi, reading lists, exams, and other course materials; material relating to conferences attended; published writings; and audiotapes of interviews relating to the evolution of development economics.
The Correspondence series is largely of a professional nature, and is chiefly concerned with international and development economics. Prominent among Meier's correspondents were Peter Bauer, Gottfried Haberler, W. A. Lewis, Hla Myint, Paul Rosenstein-Rodan, W. W. Rostow, Dudley Seers, H. W. Singer, and Paul Streeten.
Many of Meier's major publications are represented in the Writings and Speeches series. These include Economic Development, Emerging from Poverty, The International Economics of Development, International Trade and Development, Leading Issues in Development Economics, Pioneers in Development, and the Problems series of books.
Though there are more than a few folders containing materials on conferences attended by Meier, by and large the Subject Files series contains a great deal of course material. From his days as a student, there are notes, exams, syllabi, reading lists, and bibliographies from Reed College, Harvard University, and University of Oxford concerning courses taken under Edward Chamberlin, Gottfried Haberler, John Hicks, Wassily Leontief, and others. Also, there is material representing the several law courses Meier enrolled in at Yale University and Stanford University. Among the lecture notes from Williams College, Wesleyan University, Yale University, and Stanford University, there are also syllabi, exams, and reading lists representing his tenure as a professor. Of particular note are the several folders concerning Meier's role in the genesis and growth of the College of Social Studies at Wesleyan University.
Accession 2010-0211 contains reprints of his articles (1949-1984) and material from his lectures and presentations on development economics (1986-2002). It also includes some miscellaneous correspondence, grant proposals, and book reviews. A large portion of the accession relates to Meier's writings, including his drafts and correspondence from several books, especially Frontiers of Development Economics (2001) and Development: Biography of a Subject (2004). Another section of interest is Meier's collection of materials on the career of John Hicks, a 1972 Nobel Prize-winning economist. The collection includes article reprints written by Hicks, some clippings about his life, and an undated, unpublished manuscript titled "The Theory of Demand and the Theory of Welfare."
Processed by John Bauman, July 2001.
Encoded by Michael Shumate.
Accessions described in this collection guide: 1999-0410, 2003-0027, 2004-0001, 2005-0070, and 2010-0211.
The vast majority of Meier's papers came to the library in their original folders. Their labels, however, were often informal in their syntax. In order to file folders in an orderly manner, some labels were altered, but with the topical sense retained. In a few cases, folder titles were supplied because no title existed or else the notations were insufficient.
The order of the folders was random throughout the cartons. While folders were rearranged, original order was preserved within each folder. Thus, the inter-relations between items within individual folders may be tenuous (e.g., Harvard University syllabi concerning a course on International Economics in a folder titled "Wesleyan Courses" which has lecture notes on International Economics).
