Jenks, Jeremiah Whipple

Related Category: Economics: Biographies

1856–1929, American economist, b. St. Clair, Mich., grad. Univ. of Michigan, 1878, Ph.D. Univ. of Halle, 1885. He was professor of political economy (1891–1912) at Cornell and from 1912 was professor of government at New York Univ. Interested especially in the political aspects of economic problems, he served frequently on government boards and commissions and made many reports on trust, currency, labor, and immigration problems. Out of these experiences came his books The Trust Problem (1900; 5th ed. 1929) and The Immigration Problem (with W. J. Lauck, 1911; 6th ed. 1925). As a financial expert he advised the governments of Mexico, Nicaragua, China, and Germany. He also wrote Principles of Politics (1909) and Governmental Action for Social Welfare (1910).