Murray Weidenbaum, retired Mallinckrodt Distinguished Professor in Economics at Washington University in St. Louis, died March 20, 2014. He was 87.
Weidenbaum graduated from the City College of New York in 1948, and received a master’s degree from Columbia in 1949. In 1958, he earned a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton. After positions at Boeing and the Stanford Research Institute, he joined Washington University in 1964 as an associate professor. In 1966, he became a full professor and chair of the economics department. He was appointed the Mallinckrodt Professor in 1971.
From 1969 to 1971, Weidenbaum was Richard Nixon’s assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy. In 1975, he founded the Center for the Study of American Business at Washington University, and was its director. At his retirement in 2000, the center was renamed the Weidenbaum Center.
A fiscal conservative, he was a key economic aide to Ronald Reagan and was his chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. In supporting the president’s tax cuts, Weidenbaum championed corresponding reductions in federal spending. Reagan’s increased military outlays meant rising U.S. deficits, which Weidenbaum couldn’t support. He quietly resigned in 1982. Reagan remained a friend.
Weidenbaum is survived by his three children, Jim, Susan, and Laurie; and six grandchildren. His wife, Phyllis, died in May 2014.
Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.