Murray L. Weidenbaum, one of the country’s most acclaimed economists and a distinguished Washington University professor for more than 40 years, received the Eliot Society’s highest honor at the 39th annual William Greenleaf Eliot Society dinner on April 26. The event was held at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Clayton and included a keynote address by the celebrated Irish singing sensation Ronan Tynan.
During the award presentation, Eliot Society president Robert Virgil said: “It is with great personal pleasure and deep respect that I present this award to Murray Weidenbaum, who personifies with extraordinary distinction Washington University’s mission of teaching, research and service to society.”
Search recipients receive a silver replica of “The Search,” a sculpture designed by emeritus professor of art Heikki Seppa that symbolizes the endless quest for truth and knowledge.
Weidenbaum, Ph.D., is the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor of Economics in Arts & Sciences, and the honorary chair of the Center now named after him. As a “Search” awardee, Weidenbaum joins a group of outstanding citizens who have made a significant impact on the University, the region, the country or the world.
In Weidenbaum’s case, it’s all four. A highly influential economist and policy advisor, he has a legacy in the academic and governmental realms that began in the early 1960s.
In all, Weidenbaum has served or advised five U.S. presidents, all while teaching, writing, and conducting research. He worked as a member of the New York State Department of Labor. During the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, he served on the U.S. Bureau of the Budget staff. After a stint in the corporate world with Boeing, he turned to the academic world via Stanford University, then Washington University, where he began as an associate professor of economics in 1964.
Two years later he was named a full professor and chair of the department. During that time, Weidenbaum directed the largest research project in the department, the NASA Economics Research Program. He left for Washington D.C. in 1969 to serve as the first Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under President Richard M. Nixon. In 1971 he was installed as the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor.
This straddling of two worlds would become a pattern throughout the 1980s. During the first Reagan administration, Weidenbaum became the first chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, and his dual role as teacher and government policy leader continued through the George H.W. Bush White House, when the president sent him on a special mission to Poland.
Throughout the early years of his academic life, Weidenbaum continued his keen interest in the impact of government on business, and founded the Center for the Study of American Business at Washington University; he served as its director most of that time. In 2000, the Center was renamed the Murray Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government and Public Policy in his honor.
In addition, Weidenbaum held many leadership positions, among them serving as chief economist of The Boeing Company, and heading up the U.S. Trade Deficit Review Commission. He is a member of the boards of Harbour Group, Macroeconomic Advisers, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He advises the Center for Strategic Tax Reform, the American Council for Capital Formation, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He also chairs the board of directors of Washington University’s Center for New Institutional Social Sciences (CNISS).
Weidenbaum is the author of 10 books, most recently a compilation of essays called One-Armed Economist: On the Intersection of Business and Government, offering his analysis of public policy issues. Other publications include his widely-used textbook, Business and Government in the Global Marketplace, now in its seventh edition; The Bamboo Network, a finalist for the 1996 best global business book of the year; and Small Wars, Big Defense, judged to be the outstanding economics book of 1992 by the Association of American Publishers. Added to this is a long list of hundreds of articles and essays that have been published in scholarly journals and in the nation’s top newspapers and magazines.
Weidenbaum received a bachelor’s degree from City College of New York, a master’s degree from Columbia University, and a doctoral degree from Princeton University.
The Eliot Society, founded in 1959, now has more than 4,500 members who are alumni, parents and friends providing unrestricted support for the University.