Alfred Haskell Conrad (January 2, 1924 – October 18, 1970) was a distinguished professor of

economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

and

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a Public university, public research university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York ...

. He belonged to the quantitative economic current called new economic history, or

cliometrics Cliometrics (, also ), sometimes called 'new economic history' or 'econometric history', is the systematic application of economic theory, econometric techniques, and other formal or mathematical methods to the study of history (especially social a ...

. Conrad attended Brooklyn Boys High and in 1947 graduated from Harvard College. There he completed a doctorate in economics in 1954 and later taught in the economics department and in the business school. In 1958 he co-authored "The Economics of Slavery in the Antebellum South", in the ''

Journal of Political Economy The ''Journal of Political Economy'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal published by the University of Chicago Press. Established by James Laurence Laughlin in 1892, it covers both theoretical and empirical economics. In the past, the ...

'', with John R. Meyer. Using rigorous statistics, the authors concluded that the view that slavery would have disappeared without the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

was "a romantic hypothesis which will not stand against the facts". This study anticipated ''

Time on the Cross Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to compa ...

'' by

Robert Fogel Robert William Fogel (; July 1, 1926 – June 11, 2013) was an American economic historian and winner (with Douglass North) of the 1993 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. As of his death, he was the Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Se ...

and Stanley Engerman, which reached the same conclusion. Edward L. Glaeser
"Remembering the Father of Transportation Economics"
, ''The New York Times'' (Economix), October 27, 2009. Conrad was married to the poet

Adrienne Rich Adrienne Cecile Rich ( ; May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing "the ...

, with whom he had three sons. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in

Peacham, Vermont Peacham is a New England town, town in Caledonia County, Vermont, Caledonia County, Vermont, United States. The population was 715 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. History In 1763, Governor Benning Wentworth of Province of New Ha ...

at the age of 46.

References

1924 births 1970 deaths Harvard Business School faculty Suicides by firearm in Vermont Harvard College alumni 20th-century American economists 1970 suicides Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni {{US-economist-stub