Robert Fogel

Robert William Fogel ( born July 1, 1926 in New York City; † June 11, 2013 in Oak Lawn, Illinois) was an American economist and economic historian and professor at the University of Chicago.

Career

Fogel, son of Russian Jewish immigrants, graduated from Stuyvesant High School in New York and then studied history ( with a minor in economics ) at Cornell University, where he was president of a communist youth organization ( American Youth for Democracy ). After completing his bachelor's degree in 1948 he worked for the Communist Party, but from which he turned away later. He studied further and made 1960 his master's degree at Columbia University and in 1963 received his doctorate at Johns Hopkins University. He taught from 1958 to 1959 at the Johns Hopkins University, from 1960 to 1965 and 1968 to 1975. At the University of Rochester, 1964-1975 at the University of Chicago, from 1975 to 1981 at Harvard University, and from 1981 again in Chicago

Robert Fogel was one of the main representatives of Kliometrie, the statistics sound economic history. His main work is considered jointly with Stanley Engerman wrote Time on the Cross, a study of the economics of slave society in the American South. In it, he argued that slavery was not unprofitable, as often claimed, arguing that the price of slaves would have risen faster than prices for the products they produce. He also represented the idea that slaves were better treated on the plantations on average than workers in the factories in the north. Although the methodological intelligence of the investigation always found recognition, Fogel and Engerman were sharply attacked. Shortly after the release of Time on the Cross appeared a book by Paul David and others, for a detailed refutation of their theses. Above all, they were accused of having worked out through a narrow statistical base out and to have everything drawn in particular, a clearly well -intentioned picture of the living conditions of the colored slaves. Fogel himself was never an apologist for slavery and always stressed his rejection of slavery on moral grounds.

Even more common theses Fogel underwent a critical review. So he came to the conclusion that the railroad in the United States in the period around 1890, only to have a saving of up to three percent ( and more at one percent) performed at the transport costs for agricultural products. In comparison to a hypothetical economy without rail (which should be based mainly on the transport channel ) is the reduction was very small. This thesis dissolved in the history of science from a ready debate that led up to the present. Meanwhile, it is rejected by many historians.

In 1993, Fogel received along with Douglass Cecil North the Nobel Prize in Economics for their " counterfactual analysis " on the basis of ( " What if ...? " Happen and so the story would have been different ) developed renewal of economic history research by application of economic theory and quantitative methods to explain economic and institutional change.

Writings

  • With Stanley Engerman Time on the Cross. The economics of american negro slavery, in two volumes, Boston, Toronto 1974
  • Railroads and the American economic growth. Essays in econometric history, Baltimore 1964
  • The Union Pacific Railroad: A Case in Premature Enterprise, 1960.
  • Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery, 2 volumes, 1989.
  • Economic Growth, Population Theory and Physiology: The Bearings of Long -Term Processes on the Making of Economic Policy, 1994.
  • The Slavery Debates, 1952-1990: A Retrospective. Baton Rouge:. Louisiana State University Press, 2003 106 pp. ISBN 0-8071-2881-3.
  • The Fourth Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism Chicago: University of Chicago, 2002
  • The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100: Europe, America, and the Third World. New York:. Cambridge University Press, 2004, 189pp. ISBN 0-521-80878-2
  • With Roderick Floud, Bernard Harris and Sok Chul Hong: The Changing Body. Health, Nutrition and Human Development in the Western World since 1700, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England 2011 ISBN 978-0-521-87975-0
  • Publisher Ralph A. galantines, and Richard L. Manning, Nicholas Scott Cardell: Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery: Evidence and Methods, Norton, 1992
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