March 2013

Vita of

SAMUEL H.  WILLIAMSON

Higher Education

Purdue, 9/58 - 6/62, Economics, B.S., 6/62

Purdue, 9/62 - 1/64, Economics, M.S., 1/64

Purdue, 1/64 - 9/67, Economics, Ph.D., 1/68

Academic Positions

Assistant Professor, The University of Iowa, 9/67 - 7/72

Associate Professor, The University of Iowa, 7/72 - 7/83

Professor, Department of Economics, Miami University, 7/83 - 12/03

Research Professor, Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago, 8/09 - 8/14

Visiting professor or scholar at the following: University of British Columbia, London School of Economics, University of California at Berkeley, Hagley Museum and Library, University of Sydney, Harvard University, Northwestern University

Professional Service

Co-founder of The Cliometric Society (with D. McCloskey) in 1983

Executive Director of The Cliometric Society, 1983 - 1999

Creator and Executive Director of EH.Net, 1996 - 2003

Co-creator and President of MeasuringWorth  2006-present

Winner of the 2020 Economic History Association's Engerman-Goldin Prize   

Selected Publications

"Tests of Alternative Premises in a Macro-Model>"Indian Economic Journal, 1970, Vol. 17, No. 6, pp. 725-3.

"The Self-Sufficiency of the Antebellum South: Estimates of the Food Supply" (with W. Hutchinson) Journal of Economic History, September 1971, Vol. 31, No. 3, pp. 591-612.

"The Coastal Trade of the British North American Colonies, 1768-1772" (with J. Shepherd), Journal of Economic History, December 1972, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 783-810.

"Estimates of National Product and Income for the United States Economy, 1919-41," (with J. Swanson), Explorations in Economic History, Fall 1972, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 53-73.

"The Growth of the Great Lakes as a Major Transportation Resource, 1870-1911," Research in Economic History, Vol. 2, 1977, JAI Press, pp. 173-248.

"Tax Credits for Employment Rather Than Investment," (with J. Kesselman and E. Berndt), American Economic Review, June, 1977, pp. 339-349.

An Investigation of the Conceptual and Qualitative Impact of Employment Tax Credits,(with G. Fethke and A. Policano), Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, Kalamazoo, MI, 1978, pp. 1-114.

"Macro Economic Implications of Employment Tax Credit Policy," (with G. Fethke and A. Policano), Southern Economic Journal, October, 1979, pp. 513-527.

"Computing the Impact of Social Security Using the Life Cycle Consumption Function," (with Warren L. Jones), American Economic Review,  December, 1983, pp. 1036-1052.

"The History of Cliometrics" in The Vital One: Essays in Honor of Jonathan R. T. Hughes. edited by Joel Mokyr, JAI Press, Greenwich, CN, 1991.

"Retirement: Past and Present," in Retirement and Public Policy: The proceedings of the Second Conference of the National Academy of Social Insurance.  edited by Alicia Munnell,  Kendall/Hunt, Dubuque, IA, 1991.  (with Roger Ransom and Richard Sutch)

" Pensions in the United States and Canada before 1930: A Historical Perspective,"  Trends in Pensions 1992 edited by John A. Turner and Daniel J. Beller, U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, D.C., 1992.

"Inventing Pensions, The Origins of the Company -Provided Pension in the United States, 1900-1940," published in Societal Impact on Aging: Historical Perspectives, K. Warner Schaie and W. Andrew Achenbaum, editors,  Springer Publishing Company, New York, 1993 (with Roger Ransom and Richard Sutch)

"The Development of Industrial Pensions in the United States During the 20th Century." in Reforming Finance: Some Lessons from History.  Gerard Caprio editor, Cambridge Press, 1997

"Better Measurements of Worth," Challenge: The Magazine of Economic Affairs, Vol. 49, No. 4 (July/August 2006), pp. 86-110. (with Lawrence H. Officer)

Reflections on the Cliometrics Revolution, Routledge, London and New York, 2008. (edited with John S. Lyons and Louis P. Cain)

"The Antebellum Slave Trade: Numbers and Impact on the Balance of Payments,"  Research in Economic History, Vol. 36, 2020. Emerald Publishing.   pp. 181-212    (with Lawrence H. Officer)

"Measuring Slavery in 2020 Dollars," MeasuringWorth, December 2021. (with Louis P. Cain) 

Selected Data Sets Created

"What Was the U.S. GDP Then? Annual Observations from 1790 to the Present," (with Louis Johnston)  http://www.measuringworth.org/usgdp/.

"Annual Wages in the United States, 1774-Present," (with Lawrence H. Officer)  http://www.measuringworth.com/uswages/

"S&P Index, Yield and Accumulated Index, 1871 to Present," http://www.measuringworth.com/datasets/sap/

"Daily Closing Values of the DJA in the United States, 1885 to Present,"

http://www.measuringworth.com/DJA/

"The Price of Gold, 1257 - Present.," (with Lawrence H. Officer)  http://www.measuringworth.com/gold/