Herschel Grossman

Who was Herschel Grossman?

Herschel Ivan Grossman was an economist best known for his work on general disequilibrium with Robert Barro in the 1970s and later work on property rights and the emergence of the state.

Grossman received a bachelor of arts from the University of Virginia, a B.Phil. from the University of Oxford, and his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. Grossman collaborated with Barro to produce the influential article "A General Disequilibrium Model of Income," which, for many years, held the distinction of being the most cited article ever published in the American Economic Review. Grossman and Barro expanded on their work and produced the classic textbook Money, Employment, and Inflation in 1976.

Following his work on disequilibrium, Grossman made several contributions to the study of economic policy and political economy. His work transitioned as he investigated the institutional frictions behind Keynesian macroeconomic models. Grossman's work in political economy included the study of conflict. In a 2003 paper he explored the use of expected future scarcity as an explanatory variable in current conflicts. Grossman also investigated property rights.