THE SPARTAN SCHOOL OF INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS AT MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

Abstract

The first Wisconsin Ph.D.s who came to MSU with an institutional bent were agricultural economists and included Henry Larzalere (Ph.D. 1938) whose major professor was Asher Hobson. Larzalere recalls the influence of Commons who retired in 1933. Upon graduation, Larzalere worked a short time for Wisconsin Governor Phillip Fox LaFollette who won passage of the nation’s first unemployment compensation act. Commons had earlier helped LaFollette’s father, Robert, to a number of institutional innovations.⁴ Larzalere continued the Commons’ tradition of contributing to the development of new institutions rather than being content to provide an efficiency apologia for existing private governance structures. He helped Michigan farmers form cooperatives. He taught land economics prior to Barlowe’s arrival in 1948, but primarily taught agricultural marketing. One of his Master’s degree students was Glenn Johnson (see below). Larzalere retired in 1977.

Citation

Schmid, A.A. (2004), "THE SPARTAN SCHOOL OF INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS AT MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY", Samuels, W.J. (Ed.) Wisconsin "Government and Business" and the History of Heterodox Economic Thought (Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Vol. 22), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 207-243. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0743-4154(03)22051-4