James S. Duesenberry
(1918-2009)

James Stemble Duesenberry, Emeritus Professor in the Department of Economics at Harvard University, died on Monday, October 5, 2009 at his home in Belmont, Mass. Professor Duesenberry was an authority on monetary policy and served as a former member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors under President Johnson from 1966 to 1968. He was the chair of Harvard’s Department of Economics from 1972 to 1977.

Born in Princeton, West Virginia on July 18, 1918, he graduated from Bennett High School in Buffalo, New York and attended the University of Michigan where he received his A.B. in 1939, his A.M. in 1941, and his Ph.D in 1948. From 1939 until 1941, he worked as a teaching assistant at University of Michigan, and then joined the Air Force working as a statistician during World War II and rising to the rank of Captain. He was a Research Fellow of the Social Science Research Council in 1941, and he became an instructor at MIT in 1946. In the same year, he began his Harvard career as a Teaching Fellow. He held various posts at Harvard and was also a Fulbright Fellow at Cambridge University in 1954-1955 before being appointed as a full professor of the Harvard Faculty in 1955. He was a Ford Research Professor in 1958-59, and he continued teaching at Harvard until 1989. Professor Dusenberry also served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston from 1969 to 1974, and as a consultant to the Harvard Institute for International Development from 1981.

He is the author of Income Saving and the Theory of Consumer Behavior (1949), Business Cycles and Economic Growth (1957), Money and Credit Impact and Control (1964), and Capital Needs in the Seventies with Barry Bosworth and Andrew. S. Carron (1975).

Prof. Duesenberry is survived by his children John of Brookline, Holly of Gouldsboro, ME and Peggy of Stirling, Scotland and 4 grandchildren. A memorial service will be held at the First Church in Belmont, Unitarian Universalist (404 Concord Ave., Belmont) on October 16 at 12 noon. In lieu of flowers, gifts may be made in his name to the American Friends Service Committee.