STANLEY LEBERGOTT

STANLEY LEBERGOTT, 91, a retired economist and Chester D. Hubbard Professor of Economics and Social Sciences, Emeritus, whose influential books and articles maintained that consumerism had brought positive changes to the American standard of living, died July 24, 2009. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, both in economics, from the University of Michigan. Affiliated with the U.S. Department of Labor, the International Labor Office, and the U.S. Bureau of the Budget for 20 years, his early work focused on measures of unemployment, the size and composition of the labor force, wage determination, family income and child welfare. In 1962 he joined the Wesleyan faculty as professor of economics, becoming University Professor in 1970 and retiring in 1995 as professor emeritus. He was a pivotal scholar in his field and a prolific author. In addition to more than 50 articles, his books include: Manpower in Economic Growth: The American Record Since 1800 (McGraw Hill, 1964); Men Without Work (Prentice Hall, 1964); The American Economy: Income, Wealth, and Want (Princeton, 1976); The Americans: An Economic Record (Norton, 1984); Pursuing Happiness: American Consumers in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, 1993); andConsumer Expenditures: New Measures and Old Motives (Princeton, 1996). Wesleyan Professor of Economics, Emeritus, Peter Kilby writes: “The Lebergott scholarly paradigm is a distinctive one. The conventional paradigm entails placing the problem in context, reviewing the ruling interpretations, setting out an appropriately specified model, and concluding with an evaluation of econometric results. Lebergott, by contrast, moves directly to the quiddity of the problem itself. With unusual clarity of vision he isolates three or four key ingredients, and then proceeds with shattering simplicity to conceive a single measure—typically one painstakingly constructed from unconventional sources—that captures the direction and force of the underlying cause. Thus the calculation of two profit rates—on U.S. foreign investment and on the national capital stock—reveals the motive force behind U.S. imperialism at the turn of the century.” Lebergott traced how consumer expenditure has been the means to improved health, reduced drudgery, greater privacy, and to a vast expansion in diversified experience, which lies at the core of human happiness. His son, Steven Lebergott, predeceased him. Survivors include his wife, Ruth Wellington Lebergott MAT ’69; his daughter, Karen Lebergott; and step–grandchildren, including StarRose Keyes–Lebergott ’10 and Sunshine Vogt ’98.