Profile Major Works Resources

John F. Muth, 1930-2005.

The father of "rational expectations".

Originating from the Midwest, John F. Muth studied industrial engineering at Washington University, St. Louis, before going to study economics at Carnegie-Mellon, were he came under the influence of Franco Modigliani and Herbert Simon.  An instructor already by the late 1950s, Muth only received his Ph.D in 1962.  Muth stayed on at Carnegie-Mellon until 1965.  He moved on to Michigan State, then  Indiana.

Muth's foundiational piece on rational expectations written for Econometrica in 1961, was little noticed until a decade later, when Lucas and Rapping published their own work, launching the New Classical revolution.  By then Muth have moved on.

 

  

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Major Works of John Muth

  • Planning Production, Inventories and Work Force, with C.C. Holt et al, 1960.
  • "Optimal Properties of Exponentially Weighted Forecasts", 1960, JASA
  • "Rational Expectations and the Theory of Price Movements", 1961, Econometrica [pdf]
  • Operations Managment: Analysis for decisions with G.K. Groff, 1972.

 
HET

 
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Resources on  John Muth

  • "How (Not) to Influence People: The Contrary Tale of John F. Muth", by Esther-Mirjam Sent, 2002, HOPE
  • "In Memoriam: John Muth (1930-2005): Remembering the man behind rational expectation" by Ian Bannan [online][pdf]
  • Wikipedia
     

 

 
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