Murray L. Weidenbaum, Ph.D., one of the country’s most acclaimed economists and a distinguished WUSTL professor for more than 40 years, received the Search Award, the William Greenleaf Eliot Society’s highest honor, at the group’s 39th annual dinner April 26 at The Ritz-Carlton, St. Louis.
The event included a keynote address by celebrated Irish singer Ronan Tynan.
The Search Award was presented to Weidenbaum by Eliot Society President Robert L. Virgil, Ph.D., former dean of the Olin School of Business and former executive vice chancellor for University relations.
“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,” Virgil said.
Recipients of this award receive a silver replica of The Search, a sculpture — designed by Heikki Seppa, emeritus professor of art — symbolizing the endless quest for truth and knowledge.
Weidenbaum is the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor of economics in Arts & Sciences and the honorary chair of the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy.
As a Search recipient, he 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 adviser, 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. 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 The Boeing Co., he turned to academia 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 NASA Economics Research Program, the department’s largest research project.
He left for Washington, D.C., in 1969 to serve as the first assistant secretary of the treasury for economic policy under President Nixon. In 1971, he was installed as the Mallinckrodt professor at WUSTL.
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. 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 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 WUSTL. In 2000, the center was renamed the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy.
In addition, Weidenbaum held many leadership positions, among them serving as chief economist for Boeing 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 the University’s Center for New Institutional Social Sciences.
Weidenbaum is the author of 10 books, most recently One-Armed Economist: On the Intersection of Business and Government, a compilation of essays 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.
He has published hundreds of articles and essays in scholarly journals, the nation’s top newspapers and magazines.
Weidenbaum earned a bachelor’s degree from City College of New York, a master’s degree from Columbia University and a doctorate 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.