Ezekiel, Mordecai Joseph Brill
EZEKIEL, MORDECAI JOSEPH BRILL
EZEKIEL, MORDECAI JOSEPH BRILL (1899–1974), U.S. agricultural economist. Ezekiel, who was born in Richmond, Virginia, received a bachelor of science degree in agriculture from Maryland Agricultural College (1918), a master of science degree from the University of Minnesota (1923), and a Ph.D. in economics from the Robert Brookings Graduate School of Economics and Government (1926).
Ezekiel spent his career in federal government and United Nations service. He was statistical assistant in agriculture to the U.S. Census Bureau from 1919 to 1922, when he joined the farm management division of the Department of Agriculture. From 1930 to 1933 he was assistant chief economist of the Federal Farm Board. In 1932 he formulated the details of what was to become the Agriculture Adjustment Administration and helped prepare a draft of the Agricultural Adjustment Act. Ezekiel was also involved with the founding conferences and early activities of what was to become the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. From 1933 to 1944 he was economic adviser to the secretary of agriculture. He returned to the Department of Agriculture for two years and then spent 15 years in the economic division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the un (1947–62), the final year as assistant director-general. In 1962 he became chief of the un division of program control staff in the State Department's agency for international development. He retired from the fao in 1962 to take a position with the United States Agency for International Development. He served as chief of the United Nations Division of this agency until his retirement in 1967. During the last years of his life, Ezekiel took occasional assignments as consultant. In 1969 he worked for several months with the fao, helping to prepare a report entitled "Indicative Plan for World Agricultural Development."
Ezekiel's major interests besides agricultural economics were economic development and econometrics, subjects on which he contributed many articles to professional periodicals and wrote a number of books. Among his published works are Methods of Correlation Analysis (1930, 19412); $2,500a Year – from Scarcity to Abundance (1936); Jobs for All Through Industrial Expansion (1939); and the f.a.o. publication Usesof Agricultural Surpluses to Finance Economic Development in Underdeveloped Countries – A Pilot Study in India (1955). He was also co-author and editor of Towards World Prosperity (1947).
[Joachim O. Ronall /
Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)]