The Institutional Economics and Public Service of Edwin A. Elliott

Edwin A. Elliott, a product of the Texas school of Institutionalism, had a storied career that included being a decorated veteran of WWI, student body president and later chair of the economics department at Texas Christian University, and regional director of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s National Labor Relations Board. A lifelong supporter of progressive causes, he was an inspirational and influential individual. And yet despite this, he is all-but-forgotten—even on the campus of the university where he served in leadership roles during both his undergraduate days and as a member of the faculty. Edwin Elliott’s fate is typical of that of Institutionalist economists over the 1930s and 1940s. The ironic result of their willingness to become public servants was a loss of power and prestige within the discipline. Their absence in the academy and the classroom was, while not the only factor that led to the resurgence of the Neoclassical mainstream, an important contributing factor. Telling his story, therefore, offers both an opportunity to recognize the achievements of a kind, inspiring, and conscientious man and to increase our understanding of the events that led to Institutionalism’s diminished influence in both theory and policy.