SOLOMON, Ezra 1920-2002

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born March 20, 1920, in Rangoon, Burma (now Myanmar); died of a stroke December 9, 2002, in Stanford, CA. Economist, educator, and author. Solomon was a founding director of Stanford University's International Center for the Advancement of Management Education and a former economics advisor to President Richard M. Nixon. Born in what is now Myanmar, he received his bachelor's degree from the University of Rangoon just before the World War II Japanese invasion in 1940. Fleeing to India, he joined the British Royal Navy and became a gunboat captain during the war. When he received a graduate school fellowship in 1947, he moved to the United States to attend the University of Chicago, where he earned his doctorate in 1950 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen. He was also a professor there until 1960, when he moved to Stanford University to teach. He was the university's first Dean Witter Professor of Finance from 1965 until 1971. In 1963 Solomon published his influential book The Theory of Financial Management, which helped establish his reputation as a prominent economic theorist. This influential work led to a post, from 1971 to 1973, on President Nixon's Council of Economic Advisors, which supported the decision to abandon the gold standard and put limits on the U.S. money supply. He then took on a number of consulting jobs, including to the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1973 to 1975, to the government of Manitoba, Canada, and to a number of U.S. agencies and institutions. Solomon was the author or editor of thirteen books, including The Anxious Economy (1976) and International Patterns of Inflation (1984). For his work at Austin College, he was awarded the college's most prestigious award, the Founder's Medal, in 1994.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

books

Who's Who in America, 56th edition, Marquis (New Providence, NJ), 2001.

periodicals

Los Angeles Times, December 21, 2002, p. B17.

New York Times, December 19, 2002, p. A29.