John Bates Clark

John Bates Clark (January 26, 1847 – March 21, 1938) was an American neoclassical economist. He was one of the pioneers of the marginalist revolution and opponent to the Institutionalist school of economics, and spent most of his career as a professor at Columbia University. He was one of the most prominent American economists of his time.

Life and career

Clark was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island. He graduated from Amherst College, in Massachusetts, at the age of 25 in 1872. From 1872 to 1875, he attended the University of Zurich and the University of Heidelberg where he studied under Karl Knies (a leader of the German Historical School). He taught as a professor of economics at Carleton College from 1875 to 1881 before moving east to teach at Smith College. He subsequently taught at Amherst College, Johns Hopkins University, and Columbia University. Early in his career Clark's writings reflected his German Socialist background and showed him as a critic of capitalism. During his time as a professor at Columbia University however, his views gradually shifted to support of capitalism and he later became known as a leading advocate of the capitalist system. Clark was the father of economist John Maurice Clark. He died in 1938

Theoretical work

After his return, from 1877 onward, Clark published several articles most of them edited later in The Philosophy of Wealth (1886). There he formulated an original version of marginal utility theory, principle already published by Jevons (1871), Menger (1871), and Walras (1878).