American Economic Association

Abstract

The American Economic Association (AEA), the world’s largest and most prestigious organization of professional economists, was inaugurated by a miscellaneous group of scholars, university administrators and public figures, in September 1885, in the early stages of a remarkable expansion in American academic life. Its original objectives of encouraging research, publications on economic subjects, and perfect freedom in economic discussions have been consistently maintained, sometimes not without difficulty given the disagreements among its members, and the persistent tension between the desire for scientific objectivity and non-partisanship and the urge to make an impact on public policy. This problem was especially acute during the AEA’s early years, when economic questions were at the forefront of public discussion. A number of prominent American economists were then under attack, and some were dismissed from or forced out of their university posts because of their opinions. However under its first President, F.A. Walker, an internationally known figure who served for the first seven years, the AEA gradually lost some of its initial reformist tone and concentrated increasingly on more strictly scholarly issues. Unlike the British Royal Economic Society, which has frequently had a non-professional President, the AEA has invariably been dominated by academic economists, although in recent decades prominent government professional economists have occasionally held the office – for example, Alice Rivlin, the first woman President, in 1985.