Douglass North

About Douglass North

Who is it?: Economist
Birth Day: November 05, 1920
Birth Place: Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, United States
Died On: November 23, 2015(2015-11-23) (aged 95)\nBenzonia, Michigan, U.S.
Birth Sign: Sagittarius
Institution: University of Washington Rice University Cambridge University Washington University in St. Louis Stanford University Hoover Institution
Field: Economic history
School or tradition: New institutional economics
Alma mater: University of California, Berkeley
Influences: Melvin M. Knight
Awards: Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (1993)

Douglass North Net Worth

Douglass North was born on November 05, 1920 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, United States, is Economist. Douglass North was an American economist who won a share of the 1993 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Best known for his work in economic history, he was of the belief that the way markets function in a country is linked to the strength or weakness of the nation’s institutions. While economists before him had studied the role of institutions in developing the economy of a country, North introduced a rigorous analysis to the study of institutional dynamics. In recognition of his contributions to economics, he along with Ronald Coase is considered a co-founder of the New Institutional Economics school of thought. Born in Cambridge, he spent his early years living at different places due to the nature of his father’s job. Even though neither of his parents was highly educated, he credited his mother’s natural intelligence and curiosity as influential factors in developing his own intellect. He went to the University of California from where he graduated with average grades. Strongly opposed to the World War II, he became a navigator in the Merchant Marine as he did not want to kill anyone. It was during his military career that he developed a deep interest in economics and eventually returned to UC Berkeley to pursue a PhD in economics.
Douglass North is a member of Intellectuals & Academics

💰 Net worth: Under Review

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Biography/Timeline

1920

Douglass North was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on November 5, 1920. He moved several times as a child due to his father's work at MetLife. The family lived in Ottawa, Lausanne, New York City, and Wallingford, Connecticut.

1942

North was educated at Ashbury College in Ottawa, Ontario and the Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut. He was accepted at Harvard at the same time that his father became the head of MetLife on the west coast, so North opted to go to University of California, Berkeley. In 1942, he graduated with a B.A. in General Curriculum-Humanities. Although his grades amounted to slightly better than a "C" average, he managed to complete a triple major in political science, philosophy and economics.

1951

From 1951–56, North was an assistant professor of economics at the University of Washington, then from 1956–1960, an associate professor. In 1960 North became co-editor of the Journal of Economic History, popularizing Cliometrics (New Economic History), and from 1960–1983 he was Professor of Economics at the University of Washington where he also served as the chair of the economics department from 1967–79. In 1979 he served as the Peterkin Professor of Political Economy at Rice University, and in 1981–82 as the Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at Cambridge University, before joining the faculty of Washington University in Saint Louis in 1983 as the Henry R. Luce Professor of Law and Liberty in the Department of Economics (where he also served as Director of the Center for Political Economy from 1984 to 1990). He was the Bartlett Burnap Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

1952

North returned to UC Berkeley to pursue a PhD in economics. He finished his studies in 1952 as he began work as an assistant professor at the University of Washington.

1960

As a Nobel prize winner, North's reputation extended both from his own university environment to the international influences made by his research and writing. North's research in New Economic History has included such notable economists and historians as Jonathan Hughes, Richard Sutch, Lloyd Mercer, Jim Sheperd, Donald Gordon, Gary Walton, Lance E. Davis, Robert Huttenback, Roger Ransom, Gaston Rimlinger, Terry L. Anderson, P.J. Hill, Philip Coelho, and David Knowles as recorded in the 60th Anniversary dedication volume in memory of North.

1991

Section 2 of North's 1991 paper describes the economic development of societies as occurring in stages:

1992

In a 1992 paper, North argues that neoclassical economic theory overlooks the institutions required to create efficient markets with low monitoring and transaction costs. He develops a framework for explaining how institutions change and become more efficient over time.

1997

Along with Ronald Coase and Oliver Williamson, he helped found the International Society for the New Institutional Economics (ISNIE) which held its first meeting in St. Louis in 1997. His research included property rights, transaction costs, the institutional basis of markets, and economic organization in history as well as economic development in developing countries.

2014

In Violence and the Rise of Open-Access Orders, North, Wallis, and Weingast integrate a theory of politics with a theory of economics to explain the institutions, i.e. the rules governing behavior, that develop in human societies. In their view, the primary task of any set of institutions is to limit violence among individuals. They focus on two sets of institutions—which they call social orders—that accomplish this task, but which also have different effects on economic growth.

2015

North died on November 23, 2015, at his summer home in Benzonia, Michigan from esophageal cancer at the age of 95.