Charles F. Roos

Charles F. Roos
Born(1901-05-18)May 18, 1901
New Orleans, Louisiana
DiedJanuary 6, 1958(1958-01-06) (aged 56)
New York City
NationalityAmerican
Academic career
FieldMathematical economics
Alma materRice University
Doctoral
advisor		Griffith C. Evans
Doctoral
students		Helen Calkins

Charles Frederick Roos (May 18, 1901 – January 6, 1958) was an American economist who made contributions to mathematical economics.[1] He was one of the founders of the Econometric Society together with American economist Irving Fisher and Norwegian economist Ragnar Frisch in 1930. He served as secretary-treasurer during the first year of the society and was elected as president in 1948.[2] He was director of research of the Cowles Commission from September 1934 to January 1937.[3]

Roos earned a PhD in mathematics from Rice University in 1926, under supervision of Griffith C. Evans.[1] He was amongst the first, together with Evans and mathematician Frank P. Ramsey, to use the calculus of variations in mathematical economics.[4] His direct involvement with two key institutions in economic history, both the Econometric Society and the Cowles Commission, place him in a pivotal position in the mathematization of economics in the first half of the 20th century.[1] His own work, however, would not be so influential. Mathematical economics and econometrics eventually favored technical and epistemological approaches that were different from his own.[5][6][7]

  1. ^ a b c Fox, K. A. (2012). "Econometrics Needs a History: Two Cases of Conspicuous Neglect". In Sengupta, Jati; Kadekodi, Gopal (eds.). Econometrics of Planning and Efficiency. Springer. pp. 23–48. ISBN 9789400936775.
  2. ^ Christ, Carl (1983). "The Founding of the Econometric Society and Econometrica". Econometrica. 51 (1): 3–6. JSTOR 1912245.
  3. ^ Charles F. Roos (1901-1958)
  4. ^ Davis, H. T. (October 1958). "Charles Frederick Roos". Econometrica. 26 (4): 580–589. doi:10.2307/1907519. ISSN 0012-9682. JSTOR 1907519.
  5. ^ Dimand, Robert; Veloce, William (2007). "Charles F. Roos, Harold T. Davis and the Quantitative Approach to Business Cycle Analysis at the Cowles Commission in the 1930s and Early 1940s". The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought. 14 (3): 519–542. doi:10.1080/09672560701570377. S2CID 153935941.
  6. ^ Pomini, Mario (2018). "Economic Dynamics and the Calculus of Variations in the Interwar Period". Journal of the History of Economic Thought. 40 (1): 57–79. doi:10.1017/S1053837217000116. S2CID 148798705.
  7. ^ Weintraub, Roy (1998). "From Rigor to Axiomatics: The Marginalization of Griffith C. Evans". History of Political Economy. 30 (Supplement): 227–259. doi:10.1215/00182702-30-Supplement-227.