Benjamin M. (Benjamin McAlester) Anderson

Born in Columbia, Missouri, in 1886, Benjamin McAlester Anderson Jr. studied at the University of Missouri, the University of Illinois, and Columbia University. He taught economics early in his career before moving into banking and public debate, building a reputation as a forceful and independent thinker.

Anderson is most often linked with the Austrian tradition in economics, though he developed his views in his own distinctive way. He wrote on money, credit, prices, and business cycles, and he was especially critical of inflationary finance and government interventions he believed distorted markets.

Much of his lasting reputation comes from his work as an economist at Chase National Bank and from his later teaching at UCLA. His best-known book, Economics and the Public Welfare, offered a strong interpretation of the economic turmoil of the 1920s, the Great Depression, and the New Deal, and it remains of interest to readers who want a free-market perspective on twentieth-century economic history.