James Tobin

For other people named James Tobin, see James Tobin (disambiguation).
James Tobin
Tobin in 1962
Born(1918-03-05)March 5, 1918
Champaign, Illinois, U.S.
DiedMarch 11, 2002(2002-03-11) (aged 84)
New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
Academic career
FieldMacroeconomics
InstitutionYale University
Cowles Commission
School or
tradition		Neo-Keynesian economics
Alma materHarvard University
Doctoral
advisor		Joseph Schumpeter
Doctoral
students		William Brainard[1]
Willem Buiter[2]
Duncan K. Foley[3]
Koichi Hamada[4]
Edmund Phelps
Janet Yellen[5]
Hiroshi Yoshikawa[6]
ContributionsPortfolio theory
Keynesian economics
Tobin's q
Tobit model
Tobin Tax
Mundell–Tobin effect
AwardsJohn Bates Clark Medal (1955)
Nobel Prize in Economics (1981)
Information at IDEAS / RePEc

James Tobin (March 5, 1918 – March 11, 2002) was an American economist who served on the Council of Economic Advisers and consulted with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and taught at Harvard and Yale Universities. He contributed to the development of key ideas in the Keynesian economics of his generation and advocated government intervention in particular to stabilize output and avoid recessions. His academic work included pioneering contributions to the study of investment, monetary and fiscal policy and financial markets. He also proposed an econometric model for censored dependent variables, the well-known tobit model.

Along with fellow neo-Keynesian economist James Meade in 1977,[7][8] Tobin proposed nominal GDP targeting as a monetary policy rule in 1980.[9][10] Tobin received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1981 for "creative and extensive work on the analysis of financial markets and their relations to expenditure decisions, employment, production and prices."

Outside academia, Tobin was widely known for his suggestion of a tax on foreign exchange transactions, now known as the "Tobin tax." This was designed to reduce speculation in the international currency markets, which he saw as dangerous and unproductive.

  1. ^ Brainard, William. "Economic Growth and Long-term International Capital Movement". Retrieved January 23, 2023 – via ProQuest.
  2. ^ Buiter, Willem H. (1979). Temporary Equilibrium and Long-Run Equilibrium. Routledge Revivals. London: Routledge (published 2014). ISBN 9781315780726.
  3. ^ Foley, Duncan. "Resource Allocation and the Public Sector". Retrieved January 23, 2023 – via ProQuest.
  4. ^ Hamada, Koichi. "Economic Growth and Long-term International Capital Movement". Retrieved January 23, 2023 – via ProQuest.
  5. ^ Yellen, Janet. "Employment, Output and Capital Accumulation in an Open Economy: A Disequilibrium Approach". ProQuest 288017476. Retrieved January 23, 2023 – via ProQuest.
  6. ^ Aoki, Masanao; Yoshikawa, Hiroshi (2006). Reconstructing macroeconomics: a perspective from statistical physics and combinatorial stochastic processes. Japan-U.S. Center Sanwa monographs on international financial markets. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. p. xvii. ISBN 9780521831062.
  7. ^ Meade, James (September 1978), "The Meaning of "Internal Balance"", The Economic Journal, 88 (351), Wiley-Blackwell: 423–435, doi:10.2307/2232044, JSTOR 2232044
  8. ^ Meade, James (December 1993), "The Meaning of "Internal Balance"", The American Economic Review, 83 (6), American Economic Association: 1–9, JSTOR 2118018
  9. ^ Tobin, James (1980), "Stabilization policy ten years after" (PDF), Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 11 (1), Brookings Institution: 19–90, doi:10.2307/2534285, JSTOR 2534285
  10. ^ Tobin, James (1980). "Stabilization Policy Ten Years After" (PDF). Brookings Papers on Economic Activity. 1980 (1). Brookings Institution: 19–89. doi:10.2307/2534285. JSTOR 2534285.