Profile Major Works Resources

Gardiner C. Means, 1896-1988

American Institutionalist economist.

Before entering Harvard at the relatively late age of 28, Gardiner Means had already sufficient experience of business methods to detect the narrowness of his teachers. After a stint in the army, Means had moved on to set up a wool factory near Boston - drawing from his experience in Turkey and at the Lowell Textile School. At Harvard, Means was engaged by Adolf A. Berle for a project which was to become their magnum opus: Modern Corporation and Private Property, (1932), a landmark of the American Institutionalist tradition.  In it, they analyzed the emerging "new age" of the bureaucratized corporation: with the growing division between ownership and management, the entrepreneurial spirit which had guided earlier corporate behavior was now replaced by a managerial class with the different incentives.  Means introduced the concept of "administered price" in his 1935 report, and proceeded to connect it to inflation. 

 

  

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Major Works of Gardiner C. Means

  • The Modern Corporation and Private Property, with A.A. Berle, 1932.
  • "Industrial Prices and their Relative Inflexibility" , 1935, US Government Printing Office
  • Patterns of Resource Use, 1938.
  • The Structure of the American Economy, 1939.
  • Pricing Power and the Public Interest, 1962.
  • The Corporate Revolution in America, 1962.
  • "Simultaneous Inflation and Unemployment: Challenge to theory and policy", 1975 Challenge.
  • The Heterodox Economics of Gardiner C. Means: A collection, 1991.
  • A Monetary Theory of Employment, 1994.
HET

 
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Resources on Gardiner Means

 

 
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