'Business Week' Charges Economics Dept. Declining

"The impact the University once exerted over economic policy, especially in the Kennedy and Johnson years, has all but disappeared," an article in this week's "Business Week" magazine says.

The article, entitled "Harvard Fades in Economics," attributes this alleged loss of national influence to unsatisfactory faculty appointments, insensitivity of faculty towards graduate students and economics as a field, and the rise of economics departments at other prominent universities, especially the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

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Otto Eckstein, Warburg Professor of Economics, said 'yesterday, "No doubt MIT has a more appealing graduate program, but Harvard's is on the road to reconstruction."

Kenneth J. Arrow, James Bryant Conant University Professor, who will leave for Stanford University on July 1, said yesterday, "Harvard maintains a more diverse economics department. I believe one of the effects of this is to produce more tension among students."

Arrow added the diversity nonetheless benefits students. "I think Harvard's economics department is in one of its great periods," he said.

Zvi Griliches, Professor of Economics, said yesterday the article exaggerated the narrow scope of faculty appointments.

Jeffrey Wolcowitz, instructor in economics, said yesterday, "A lot of the things said in the article related to the period of 1974 to 1975--in past years, the health of the department has improved."

The article criticizes the faculty of the Economics Department for its "arrogance" towards the economic profession and its lack of insight into general field trends.

"I would say that the whole field has lost its international forward movement," Eckstein said yesterday, adding, "somewhat like chemistry."