Lloyd A. Metzler papers, 1937-1974

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Summary

Creator:
Metzler, Lloyd A. (Lloyd Appleton)
Abstract:
Lloyd Metzler (1913-1980) was a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Chicago. This collection documents his professional life through his correspondence, writings, and professional and faculty activities. It forms parts of the Economists' Papers Archive.
Extent:
14 Linear Feet (11 boxes and one oversize folder.)
Language:
Material in English.
Collection ID:
RL.00893

Background

Scope and content:

This collection chiefly consists of professional correspondence, research notes and drafts, printed material, teaching material, and typed drafts or reprints of works by Metzler and others. Significant correspondents include Moses Abramovitz, Kenneth Arrow, Harry Johnson, James Meade, and Paul Samuelson, with many letters, particularly between Meade, Metzler, and Johnson (1940s-1950s), containing in-depth exchanges about economics. There are a few exchanges with Gottfried Haberler on international trade. Several folders contain significant notes from Metzler's own student days at Harvard University in the 1930s with Joseph Schumpeter, Wassily Leontief, and O. H. Taylor. Many items in the collection relate to Metzler's wartime service as an economic consultant for several US government agencies, including the Federal Reserve Board, as well as his post-war work with the Department of State and with the Secretary of the Treasury on monetary policy, among other issues. Other items relate to his work as a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and offer insights into the views he held on economics in the context of the Chicago School. Topics represented in the collection include post-World War II policy and planning, including British-American economic negotiations after the war and German monetary reform; monetary aspects of international trade; exchange rates; income transfer; instability theories; and the application of mathematics to economic theory. Some files of research notes and paper drafts contain unpublished work; one draft contains handwritten comments by Jacob Viner.

Biographical / historical:

Lloyd Appleton Metzler (1913-1980) was a white American government and academic economist who was born in Kansas. As an economist, he became known for his research on international trade, tariffs, the business cycle, macro-monetary theory, mathematical economics, and instability. The Metzler paradox, Metzler matrix, and the Laursen-Metzler effect all bear his name. Graduating from Harvard University in 1942, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. He served as a consultant to several US government commissions and the Federal Reserve Board during World War II, and was a member of the Yale University faculty from 1946-1947. He subsequently spent most of his career at the University of Chicago, where he was a Keynesian economist rather than following the Chicago School of thought. He underwent surgery for a brain tumor in 1952 and, with the help of his wife Edith, was able to continue working until his retirement in 1971. He served as editor of the Journal of Political Economy from 1966-1971, and he was honored as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association in 1968. In 1973, Harvard University Press published Metzler's Collected Papers, which were chiefly written between 1941-1951.

Acquisition information:
The Lloyd A. Metzler papers were received by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library as a gift from Richard Metzler in 1987.
Processing information:

Processed by Rubenstein Library staff, January 1988.

Encoded by Robert Carlson and Paula Jeannet, October 2009.

Accessions described in this collection guide: 1987-0126 and 1987-0162.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Contents

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Using These Materials

Restrictions:

Access restricted. Collection requires additional arrangement, description, and/or screening because it is minimally processed. Contact Research Services for more information.

Terms of access:

The copyright interests in this collection have not been transferred to Duke University. For more information, consult the Rubenstein Library's Citations, Permissions, and Copyright guide.

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Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Lloyd A. Metzler papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University.

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