Hagen, Everett E.

YEARS IN THE DEPARTMENT:

1948-1951

RESEARCH INTEREST:

Development Economics

BIOSKETCH:

Everett Einar Hagen was born in Holloway, Minnesota in 1906. He earned his bachelor’s degree from St. Olaf College in 1927, and subsequently attended the University of Wisconsin, where he earned a master’s degree in history in 1932 and then a PhD in economics in 1941. Hagen served under multiple federal agencies during and following World War II, including the National Resources Planning Board, the Federal Reserve Board, the and Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion.

In 1948, Hagen left his public service career behind to pursue an academic career. He joined the University of Illinois in that year, and was appointed the head of the Department of Economics in 1950 by Dean Howard R. Bowen. Hagen and Bowens’ leadership led to a time of high tensions in the department, however. Bowen and many of the professors he recruited, including Hagen, were strong supporters of Keynesian economics, which the older faculty members believed was a flawed philosophy.

These tensions reached their boiling point in 1950 when Professor Ralph H. Blodgett, a faculty member since 1936, resigned from the Department. Bowen had removed Blodgett from many of his prior teaching duties, and Hagen said that Blodgett had not been using “new tools of analysis” in his teaching. It soon became public that Hagen and Bowen had not attempted to retain Blodgett, which enraged many older faculty members.

This sparked a civil war in the Department between the pro-Bowen Keynesians and the pro-Blodgett neoclassical economists. The latter group ended up winning the dispute, and Bowen was removed as Dean in late 1950. This caused the majority of Bowen’s supporters like Hagen to resign from the University, and many went on to have successful careers elsewhere.

Hagen eventually joined MIT as a visiting professor of economics in 1953, and became a full professor in 1959. In 1970, he was appointed the director of MIT’s Center for International Studies, a position that he held until his retirement in 1972. Dr. Hagen died on November 29, 1992 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, at the age of 86.

PHD:

University of Wisconsin, 1941

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

Hagen, Everett E. The Economics of Development. Homewood, Ill: R.D. Irwin, 1968. Print.
Hagen, Everett E. On the Theory of Social Change: How Economic Growth Begins. Homewood, Ill: Dorsey Press, 1962. Print.
Hagen, Everett E, and Stephanie F. T. White. Great Britain: Quiet Revolution in Planning. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1966. Print.
Hagen, Everett E. Handbook for Industry Studies. Glencoe, Ill: Free Press, 1958. Print.
Hagen, Everett E. The Economic Development of Burma: [an International Committee Report]. Washington: National Planning Association, 1956. Print.

VITA: