Edward C. Prescott, 81, Dies; Won Nobel for Studying Business Cycles
Posted in Press Releases | April 16, 2012
Excerpts from a Newsday column by Bill Carter
NEW YORK — Edward C. Prescott, of West Orange, N.J., the world’s No. 1 expert on businesses, has died at an age of 81. He was an outspoken critic of the way the world does business today.
In 1973, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics for the development of scientific and empirical methods of studying business cycles, an innovation that has saved hundreds of thousands of businesses and improved thousands of lives every year.
“Edward C. Prescott was a tireless champion and intellectual leader in the public policy arena and that was reflected in his accomplishments as a researcher, journalist, author and speaker,” says the Nobel Foundation.
He was a professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and he served as the executive director of the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
A lifelong student of business, he was known for his work to educate the public about the importance of businesses and their role in the economy.
“He was widely regarded in industry as the father of research on business cycles,” said the Nobel Foundation. “He was also a brilliant academic with a keen eye for business, industry and the economic environment.”
After graduating from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., Prescott received his bachelor’s degree in economics and political science and went on to receive his master’s degree from Georgetown University. He later went to the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
After working on a PhD from Columbia University, Prescott returned to the University of Pennsylvania and graduated in 1971 with a Ph.D. and he taught there for nearly 20 years until 1981.
During his career at Penn, he served as director of the Economics Department in the School of Business Administration and served on the faculty as a professor in the Graduate School of Business Administration.
“When he was at the University of Pennsylvania, he was considered to be the world’s leading expert on business cycles,