Sumner Huber Slichter (January 8, 1892 – September 27, 1959) was an American economist and the first Lamont University Professor at Harvard University. An expert on unions and economic forecasting, he was well-known to the public through his popular writing, and was considered by many to be the pre-eminent labor economist of the 1940s and 1950s. He was an advocate of collective bargaining, but at times supported legislation limiting unions. He was also a critic of the New Deal.

Background

Sumner Huber Slichter was born on January 8, 1892, in Madison, Wisconsin, the son of Charles Sumner Slichter, a mathematician and dean of the graduate school at the University of Wisconsin. In 1913, he graduated from the University of Wisconsin and went on to earn a doctorate at the University of Chicago.

Career

In 1919, Slichter taught at Princeton University. In 1920, he began teaching at Cornell University. In 1930, he moved to Harvard. After Harvard president James Bryant Conant created university professorships, not tied to any particular department, in 1936, Slichter was named the inaugural Lamont University Professor. He remained at Harvard through the end of his career. Slichter received an honorary degree from Harvard in 1942. A regular lecturer and contributor to magazines such as Harper's, Slichter was arguably the best-known economist in America at the peak of his career. Slichter's textbook, Modern Economic Society, was a standard introductory economics textbook in America before 1950. Slichter was president of the American Economic Association in 1941. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1946. Though critical of substantial portions of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's economic policy, Slichter served as an informal economic adviser to Harry Truman.

Views

Slichter was skeptical of the New Deal as a means to provide full employment, arguing that a government guarantee of full employment created perverse incentives for employees. As World War II drew to a close, most economists predicted that with an end to government spending on the war, the economy would collapse again. Slichter correctly predicted that with soldiers coming home seeking a normal life and material pleasures, the economy would grow strongly after the end of the war and that inflation would be a greater cause for concern than depression. Slichter was the first major economist to recognize that the pool of labor from comparably skilled workers was not unified across the economy but rather segmented by industry, with supply and demand curves varying as a function of the industry's profitability.

Personal life

Slichter was the brother of geophysicist Louis B. Slichter, father of physicist Charles Pence Slichter, and the grandfather of musician Jacob Slichter. Slichter died in 1959 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Works

Books: His books include: Articles: Slichter's scholarly articles include: