Kemmerer, Edwin Walter (1875–1945)

Abstract

Kemmerer was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania on 29 June 1875. After earning a PhD at Cornell under Jeremiah W. Jenks in 1903, he became a professor of economics and finance at Princeton University for most of his career. Kemmerer pioneered in the application of statistical methods to the study of money, and wrote widely on that topic as well as on banking and financial reforms. Joining the debate over the quantity theory of money, he exerted enormous influence in defence of the gold standard and central banking. Kemmerer assisted in the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1911, helped edit the American Economic Bulletin and the American Economic Review, and then served as president of the American Economic Association in 1926. More noteworthy as an extraordinary international economic advisor than as a theorist, he achieved fame around the world as the ‘money doctor’ in the 1920s.