William Herbert Peterson (February 26, 1921 – June 2012) was an American economist who wrote on the insights of Ludwig von Mises through teaching, writing, and speaking on the relationship between free enterprise and human liberty.
Education Peterson earned a B.S. (1943) and Ph.D. (1952) degrees in economics from New York University and an M.S. degree from Columbia University (1948). During World War II, he also studied at the Harvard Business School under Navy sponsorship and attended a summer leave seminar at Oxford University. During his academic career, Peterson served as assistant to the dean, associate professor, and professor of economics in the Graduate School of Business Administration at New York University, where he was a colleague and friend of Ludwig von Mises, John David Campbell, professor of American business in the American Graduate School of International Management in Arizona, Scott L. Probasco. Jr., professor of free enterprise and director, Center for Economic Education, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga; Distinguished Burrows T. and Mabel L. Lundy Emeritus Professor of Business Philosophy at Campbell University in North Carolina, and a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, where he served as adjunct scholar.
Career His experience in business and government included service as Economist and Assistant to the Chairman of the Finance Committee of the United States Steel Corporation, Senior Economic Advisor to the United States Department of Commerce, and economics speechwriter on the campaign staff of Richard Nixon. Peterson has served as a consultant for General Electric, General Motors, Republic of the Ivory Coast, Republic of South Vietnam, Time Magazine, Union Carbide, Manufacturers-Hanover Trust, and Southern Company, and other companies. In January 1979, Peterson was appointed to be a member of the Federal Drafting Committee of the National Tax Limitation Committee. Led by Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman, this committee composed a draft of a constitutional amendment to limit the growth of the Federal budget. In 1982, Peterson was sponsored by the U.S. Information Agency to lecture on supply-side economics in Romania, East Germany, Ireland and Canada. For this effort, he won a letter of commendation from President Ronald Reagan. In 1961, the McKinsey Foundation awarded first prize to Peterson for the best article of the year, "The Case for a North American Common Market," published in Indiana University's Business Horizons. In 1981, the Freedom Foundation at Valley Forge gave Dr. Peterson the Leavey Award for Excellence in Private Enterprise Education. In 1989, the Association of Private Enterprise Education named Dr. Peterson as Distinguished Scholar. In 1990, the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge awarded him the George Washington Medal of Honor. In 1991 he was awarded an honorary degree by Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala. In 1993, Campbell University conferred on him the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 2005, Peterson was awarded the Gary G. Schlarbaum Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Cause of Human Liberty, awarded by the Ludwig von Mises Institute where he was an adjunct scholar.
Writings and speeches Peterson published articles in the Harvard Business Review, The Freeman, The Free Market, Washington Times, Monthly Labor Review, The Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, Dun's Review, Business Week, Journal of Business, Journal of Economic Literature, Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Tokyo), Die 24t, Farmand (Oslo), Australian (Sydney), Sunday Times (London), and others. He wrote daily articles on Mises.org, and is the author of two tributes to Ludwig von Mises: "Thoughts and Memories" and "Mises: A Turning Point". For fourteen years, he wrote a regular column for the Wall Street Journal entitled "Reading for Business." Apart from authoring monographs and books including The Great Farm Problem (1959), he contributed entries to McGraw-Hill's Encyclopedia of Economics (1982, 1992). He has appeared as a guest commentator on the national PBS-TV show, Nightly Business Report. He was a member of the "Brain Trust" contributing a column to the Investor's Business Daily. Peterson generally wrote about economics, education, and politics. He praised capitalism quite often and stressed its necessity for a thriving society, such as in his The Washington Times article "Capitalism Appraised". Peterson also voiced his concern for present-day education standards in writings such as his article in The Free Market titled "School Values, Public and Private", where he states that "America's worry over a general moral erosion in politics and society has coincided with ever-more draconian federal control over education." Many of his writings overlapped in his topics of interest, mixing education with government and relating government to economics and capitalism. Peterson lectured at the University of the Americas (Mexico City), Harvard University, Princeton University, University of Arizona, University of Connecticut, University of Virginia, Florida State University, Chattanooga State, Northwood Institute, Emory and Henry College, Peace College, Lenoir-Rhyne College, Wellesley College, University of New Hampshire, and others, including various professional and trade associations. Many of his speeches discussed topics regarding the Austrian school of economics, following the ideas of Mises.
List of works
Business Is Business "Administration?," 1981 Getting Results with Information, May 28, 1992: THe Washington Times
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