Mayer, Robert W.

YEARS IN THE DEPARTMENT:

1945-1977

RESEARCH INTEREST:

Investing

BIOSKETCH:

Robert Wallace Mayer was born on April 17, 1909 in Mt. Pulaski, Illinois. He attended the University of Illinois as an undergraduate, earning his degree in 1930, and went on to complete his master’s and doctoral degrees at Illinois in 1931 and 1933, respectively. His extensive time at the University allowed him to work closely with many of the school’s best economists, such as N.A. Weston and Horace M. Gray.

Dr. Mayer’s teaching career began in 1933, when he joined Lehigh University as an Instructor in Economics. With the outbreak of World War II, Mayer moved to Washington to work as a Senior Economist for the War Production Board in 1942. From 1943 to 1945, he also served as the Executive Secretary of the Combined Steel Committee.

When the war ended, Dr. Mayer returned to his academic career, and joined his alma mater as an Associate Professor of Economics in 1945. He primarily focused his teaching on investments; during his tenure, enrollment in this field grew from a dozen students to more than 300. In 1952, he was promoted to a full Professor of Economics.

Dr. Mayer’s research focused on a myriad of issues, but the majority of his work related to the activities of the Swiss International Investment Companies. Through this research, Dr. Mayer developed many relationships with bankers and other economists in Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Bern and Lausanne. During his career, he spent two sabbatical leaves working in Switzerland.

In addition to his academic work, Dr. Mayer was involved in many organizations as well, including serving as the president of the Midwest Finance Association and being a founding member of the American Finance Association. Dr. Mayer retired from the University in 1977, and remained in Champaign until his death on August 24, 1998, at the age of 89.

PHD:

University of Illinois, 1933

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

Mayer, Robert W. “Business Risk and the Earnings Multiplier.” Financial Analysts Journal, vol. 21, no. 5, 1965, pp. 19–21.
Mayer, Robert W. “Performance and Its Measurement.” Financial Analysts Journal, vol. 22, no. 2, 1966, pp. 54–55.
Mayer, Robert W. “Analysis of Internal Risk in the Individual Firm.” The Analysts Journal, vol. 15, no. 5, 1959, pp. 91–95.
Mayer, Robert W. “The Decline of Academic Attention to Public Utility Economics.” Land Economics, vol. 37, no. 4, 1961, pp. 374–378.
Mayer, Robert W. “Analysis of the Flow of Funds through the Capital Market.” Financial Analysts Journal, vol. 17, no. 1, 1961, pp. 71–76.

VITA: