Seligman, Edwin Robert Anderson

Related Category: Economics: Biographies

(sĕl´ĭgmən), 1861–1939, American economist, b. New York City, Ph.D. Columbia, 1885. As professor (1885–1931) at Columbia, he edited the “Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law” and the Political Science Quarterly. He was editor in chief of the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (15 vol., 1930–35). An expert on public finance, he acted on many tax commissions and in 1931 was financial adviser to the Cuban government. His works include The Shifting and Incidence of Taxation (1892, 5th ed. 1927), Essays in Taxation (1895, 10th ed. 1925), The Economic Interpretation of History (1902, 2d ed. 1924), Principles of Economics (1905, 12th ed. 1929), and The Economics of Farm Relief (1929).

See R. G. Hoxie et al., History of the Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University (1955).