Profile Major Works Resources

Richard A. Musgrave, 1910-2007

 
Portrait of Richard Musgrave

Public finance economist.

Richard Abel-Musgrave (surname originally hyphenated, hyphen dropped later) was born in Königstein, Germany, and educated at the University of Heidelberg, where he came under the influence of Jacob Marschak.  Musgrave left Germany in 1933, as an exchange student at Rochester.  Musgrave eventually transferred to Harvard, receiving his Ph.D. in 1937.  Musgrave remained in the United States, staying on as an instructor at Harvard until 1941, when he became researcher at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington.  Musgrave eventually returned to academia, taking a position at the University of Michigan in 1948.  It was here that composed his most famous work, the Theory of Public Finance (1958).

In 1958, Musgrave left Michigan for Johns Hopkins, then subsequently Princeton, before settling down at Harvard with a joint appointment in the economics department and the law school.

 

  

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Major works of Richard Musgrave

  • "A Voluntary Exchange Theory of Public Economy", 1939, QJE
  • "Proportional Income Taxation and Risk-Taking", with E. Domar, 1944.
  • "Distribution of Tax Paments by Income Groups: A case study for 1948", 1951, National Tax Journal
  • The Theory of Public Finance, 1958.
  • Classics in the Theory of Public Finance, with A.T. Peacock, 1958
  • "Tax reform: Growth with equity", 1963,  AER
  • Fiscal Systems, 1969.
  • Public Finance in Theory and Practice, with P. Musgrave, 1973.
  • "Maximin, Uncertainty and the Leisure Trade-Off", 1974, QJE.
  • Fiscal Reform in Colombia, 1979.

 
HET

 
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Resources on  Richard Musgrave

 

 
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