Introduction

This chapter briefly discusses Young’s life and times, his personality and the scheme of the book. Young emerges as the central figure of American economics in the early decades of the twentieth century. His fingerprints are everywhere—as an inspiring teacher, institution builder and a devoted public servant—but modern interest in him is more due to his contribution to economic thought than to the economics profession. Young was a profound thinker, had a wide range and had mastered the whole literature of economics. He appreciated opposed schools of thought for economic truth for him was not the monopoly of a single school. For him economics had an instrumental value which helped solve communal problems of economic life.