The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics

Presidents of the American Economic Association (AEA)

The American Economic Association is the largest organization of professional economists in the United States and in the world. It was organized at Saratoga, New York, on September 9, 1885. The title of president of the AEA is one of the highest honors that can be bestowed on an economist. The following are the past presidents of the AEA and their years of service (with their university or institute affiliations in parentheses).

Presidents of the American Economic Association (AEA)
Francis A. Walker (MIT)—1886-92
Charles F. Dunbar (Harvard)—1893
John B. Clark (Columbia)—1894-95
Henry C. Adams (Michigan)—1896-97
Arthur T. Hadley (Yale)—1898-99
Richard T. Ely (Wisconsin)—1900-01
Edwin R. A. Seligman (Columbia)—1902-03
Frank W. Taussig (Harvard)—1904-05
Jeremiah W. Jenks (Cornell)—1906-07
Simon N. Patten (Pennsylvania)—1908
Davis R. Dewey (MIT)—1909
Edmund J. James (Illinois)—1910
Henry W. Farnam (Yale)—1911
Frank A. Fetter (Princeton)—1912
David Kinley (Illinois)—1913
John H. Gray (Minnesota)—1914
Walter F. Willcox (Cornell)—1915
Thomas N. Carver (Harvard)—1916
John R. Commons (Wisconsin)—1917
Irving Fisher (Yale)—1918
Henry B. Gardner (Brown)—1919
Herbert J. Davenport (Cornell)—1920
Jacob H. Hollander (Johns Hopkins)—1921
Henry R. Seager (Columbia)—1922
Carl C. Plehn (California)—1923
Wesley C. Mitchell (Columbia)—1924
Allyn A. Young (Harvard)—1925
Edwin W. Kemmerer (Princeton)—1926
Thomas S. Adams (Yale)—1927
Fred M. Taylor (Michigan)—1928
Edwin F. Gay (Harvard)—1929
Matthew B. Hammond (Ohio State)—1930
Ernest L. Bogart (Illinois)—1931
George E. Barnett (Johns Hopkins)—1932
William Z. Ripley (Harvard)—1933
Harry A. Millis (Chicago)—1934
John M. Clark (Columbia)—1935
Alvin S. Johnson (New School)—1936
Oliver M. W. Sprague (Harvard)—1937
Alvin H. Hansen (Harvard)—1938
Jacob Viner (Chicago)—1939
Frederick C. Mills (Columbia)—1940
Sumner H. Slichter (Harvard)—1941
Edwin G. Nourse (Brookings)—1942
Albert B. Wolfe (Ohio State)—1943
Joseph S. Davis (Stanford)—1944
I. L. Sharfman (Michigan)—1945
E. A. Goldenweiser (Institute for Advanced Study)—1946
Paul H. Douglas (Chicago)—1947
Joseph A. Schumpeter (Harvard)—1948
Howard S. Ellis (California)—1949
Frank H. Knight (Chicago)—1950
John H. Williams (Harvard)—1951
Harold A. Innis (Toronto)—1952
Calvin B. Hoover (Duke)—1953
Simon Kuznets (Pennsylvania)—1954
John D. Black (Harvard)—1955
Edwin E. Witte (Wisconsin)—1956
Morris A. Copeland (Cornell)—1957
George W. Stocking (Vanderbilt)—1958
Arthur F. Burns (Columbia)—1959
Theodore W. Schultz (Chicago)—1960
Paul A. Samuelson (MIT)—1961
Edward S. Mason (Harvard)—1962
Gottfried Haberler (Harvard)—1963
George J. Stigler (Chicago)—1964
Joseph J. Spengler (Duke)—1965
Fritz Machlup (Princeton)—1966
Milton Friedman (Chicago)—1967
Kenneth E. Boulding (Colorado)—1968
William J. Fellner (Yale)—1969
Wassily Leontief (Harvard)—1970
James Tobin (Yale)—1971
John Kenneth Galbraith (Harvard)—1972
Kenneth J. Arrow (Harvard)—1973
Walter W. Heller (Minnesota)—1974
Robert Aaron Gordon (California)—1975
Franco Modigliani (MIT)—1976
Lawrence R. Klein (Pennsylvania)—1977
Jacob Marschak (California)—1978
Tjalling C. Koopmans (Yale)—1978
Robert M. Solow (MIT)—1979
Moses Abramovitz (Stanford)—1980
William J. Baumol (Princeton)—1981
Gardner Ackley (Michigan)—1982
W. Arthur Lewis (Princeton)—1983
Charles L. Schultze (Brookings)—1984
Charles P. Kindleberger (MIT)—1985
Alice M. Rivlin (Brookings)—1986
Gary S. Becker (Chicago)—1987
Robert Eisner (Northwestern)—1988
Joseph A. Pechman (Brookings)—1989
Gerard Debreu (California)—1990
Thomas C. Schelling (Maryland)—1991
William Vickrey (Columbia)—1992
Zvi Griliches (Harvard)—1993
Amartya K. Sen (Harvard)—1994
Victor R. Fuchs (Stanford)—1995
Anne O. Krueger (Stanford)—1996
Arnold C. Harberger (UCLA)—1997
Robert W. Fogel (Chicago)—1998
D. Gale Johnson (Chicago)—1999
Dale W. Jorgenson (Harvard)—2000
Sherwin Rosen (Chicago)—2001
Robert E. Lucas, Jr. (Chicago)—2002
Peter A. Diamond (MIT)—2003
Martin S. Feldstein (NBER, Harvard)—2004
Daniel McFadden (Berkeley)—2003
Thomas Sargent (NYU, Hoover)—2003

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