Mary Bowman

Mary Jean Bowman (1908-2002) was an American economist who mostly focused on education economics.^[1]

Personal life and education

Bowman was born in New York City in 1908 and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar College in 1930. She received her Master of Arts degree from Radcliffe College two years later and her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1938.^[2]

Career

Bowman's first job after college was in 1932 when she became city supervisor of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. Three years later she became an instructor and, later, an assistant professor at Iowa State University where she remained until 1943. She served as Director of the Northwest Central Region Consumer Purchases Survey for the United States Department of Agriculture during academic year 1935–36 and was a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota in 1941. She was a senior economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1944–46. Bowman was a Fulbright research fellow in Sweden in 1956–57 and then was a contract researcher for Resources for the Future until 1959. In 1958, she was appointed Professor of Economics and Education at the University of Chicago. She served as a visiting professor in Yugoslavia, Brazil, Sweden, the London School of Economics and with the World Bank.^[3]

Using data from the United States, Mexico, Japan and Malaysia, Bowman investigated the effects of education on economic development and income distribution, with an emphasis on the relationship between fertility and technological change. Some of her later work explores expectations and business decision-making, especially investment decisions.^[4]

Notes

References

• Dimand, Robert W.; Dimand, Mary Ann & Forget, Evelyn L., eds. (2000). A Biographical Dictionary of Women Economists. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. ISBN 1852789646.