Economist and K-House Master Arthur Smithies Dies at Age 73

Arthur Smithies, Ropes Professor of Political Economy Emeritus and a former master of Kirkland House, died of a heart attack at the Cambridge Boat Club last Wednesday after rowing on the Charles River. He was 73 years old.

Smithies, an authority on the Federal budget and the fiscal policies of developing countries, served as chairman of the Economics department from 1950 to 1955 and from 1959 to 1961. "Smithies did a lot for Harvard," Otto Eckstein, Warburg Professor of Economics and one of Smithies' students, said yesterday. "He really started the modern era of the Economics department here."

An early advocate of Keynesian economics, Smithies wrote extensively on the Federal budget, fiscal policy and full employment. His "The Federal Budget and Fiscal Policy," published in 1948, was regarded as the standard work in the field for two decades.

By the 1960s, however, his interests had changed to the economic problems of developing countries. In the 1970s, Smithies helped develop and implement policies aimed at preventing the South Vietnamese government from collapsing economically in the face of high military expenditures.

"Unlike many economists, Smithies correctly believed that the difference between a good economist and an inferior one is his sense of history," John Kenneth Galbraith, Warburg Professor of Economics Emeritus, said Friday. Smithies was "one of the most popular and engaging members of the Harvard Economics department," Galbraith added.

As master of Kirkland House from 1965 to 1974, Smithies was known for his affection for students, his ability to stimulate debate, and his love of athletics, former students and associates said last week. He was also known for his annual renditions of "Waltzing Matilda" at the Kirkland House Christmas party. A native of Tasmania, Smithies had "a terrible singing voice, which the students always induced him to use," Warren Wacker, master of South House and a close friend of Smithies, said yesterday.