[lbo-talk] "Dr" Greenspan

[Mike Beggs]

In his own memoir Greenspan comes across as something of an autodidact.
He does discuss his thesis and what he says is consistent with this
report. He dropped out of the PhD originally in the early 1950s, to work
as a consulting applied economist. He went back and finished it after
his term as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers went down with
Gerald Ford. All he mentions about its content is that it included a
paper published in 1959 about the relationship between stock prices and
the value of capital equipment. [p. 165]

He actually seems almost hostile to theoretical economics. He's an
empiricist to the core. See quote here:

http://scandalum.wordpress.com/2008/03/29/maps-and-diagrams/

Cheers,
Mike

On Fri, 2008-04-04 at 16:48 -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:
> [looks like Greenspan is about as much a Dr as is Gary Null...]
> 
> Barron's - March 31, 2008
> <http://online.barrons.com/article/SB120675340444773623.html
> 
> Dr. Greenspan's Amazing Invisible Thesis
> By JIM MCTAGUE
> 
...


> Auerbach, a veteran Fed basher, portrays Greenspan as a real-life  
> Professor Marvel -- who, through double-talk or "garblement,"  
> transformed himself into a mighty economic wizard à la Oz. Auerbach  
> strongly implies that Greenspan's 1977 Ph.D. from New York University  
> was obtained in a few months with little more rigor than a matchbook- 
> cover art degree and that Greenspan has kept his Ph.D. thesis secret  
> in order to protect his vaunted academic reputation.Greenspan appears  
> to have taken only a few months to obtain his NYU doctorate in '77.