Joseph Arnold Livingston ( (1905-02-10) (1989-12-25)February 10, 1905 – December 25, 1989) was an Americanbusiness journalist and economist known for his long-runningsyndicated economics column for which he received aPulitzer Prize and threeGerald Loeb Awards. He created theLivingston Survey, a twice-yearly economic forecast survey he personally conducted from 1946 until his death in 1989.
Livingston was born on February 10, 1905, in New York City.[1] After graduating from De Witt Clinton High School, he studied English at theUniversity of Michigan, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1925.[2][3][4][5]
In September 1929, Livingston began an investment club with some of his university friends, which quickly becameunderwater when theGreat Crash shook the stock market a month later.[3] He realized his university education was insufficient for making informed investment decisions, so he took night classes at theCity College of New York from 1929 to 1931 to study investing, accounting, statistics, and economic history.[3][4] Armed with new knowledge, he repeatedly begged his editor to move him from general reporting to financial reporting until he was eventually fired.[3]
Livingston joined theNew York Daily Investment News, rising to executive editor in 1931, and wrote the "Talking It Over" column. In 1934, he moved toFinancial World to be the public utility editor.[3][4]
In 1935, Livingston joinedBusiness Week as an editor and economist.[3][4] He wrote "The Trend" and "Business Outlook" columns until his departure in 1942.[5] During his tenure, he developed his "story chart" technique, which used charts to dramatically and quickly convey economic information.[4] He extracted the real story from the data, then presented it in a way that the chart and captions clearly expressed everything that was part of the real story and nothing else.[8]
Livingston put his journalism career on hold in 1942 to work as an economist for the U.S. government duringWorld War II.[5][3] He worked for theWar Production Board to help startWar Progress, an internal weekly report distributed among the various war agencies.[8] The reports were noted for Livingston's use of his story charts to concisely deliver information.[8] He served as editor for the publication and became the economic assistant to Chief of Operations Hiland G. Batchellor.[5] In 1944, Livingston wrote a public affairs pamphlet entitled "Reconversion – the Job Ahead" and assisted in the production of two of the Board's "Critical Programs" reports.[5] He transferred to theOffice of War Mobilization and Reconversion in 1945 to help compile analytical and statistical reports for the government.[5]
After the war, Livingston joinedThe Philadelphia Record in 1945 as the financial editor.[4] The following year, he began sending a detailed questionnaire to economists around the U.S. asking for their forecasts of several economic variables for the next six, twelve, and eighteen months.[4] He conducted the survey, which came to be known as the Livingston Survey, every six months for the rest of his life.[4] In 1978, theFederal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia digitized Livingston's historical data to make it available to researchers.[4] The Bank took over conducting the survey after his death in 1989.[4] The survey is the longest continuous record of economists expectations.[4]
When theRecord closed in 1947, Livingston moved toThe Washington Post, where he started writing his semi-weekly "Minding Your Business" column.[5] The column was renamed "Business Outlook" after a few months and was nationallysyndicated later in the year, eventually being printed in over 70 newspapers.[1][5][9] He continued writing the syndicated column for the rest of his life.[4][5]
A 1970 column reporting on his six-week investigation into Howard Butcher and suspicious transactions involvingPenn Central stock earned Livingston the 1971Gerald Loeb award for newspapers.[13][14] While still writing for theBulletin, Livingston taught an economics class ("Seminar on Contemporary Economic Trends") atTemple University in 1971 and 1972.[5]
In 1972, Livingston left theBulletin forThe Philadelphia Inquirer, where he continued writing his economics columns and co-wrote a regular chess column.[5] His decades as a financial writer were honored in 1974 by the firstGerald Loeb Memorial Award.[15] He wrote a 5-part series of columns in 1975 entitled "The Second Battle of Great Britain" on the country's economic difficulties that earned him both the 1975 Bache Halsey Stuart Award from theOverseas Press Club and the 1976Gerald Loeb award for Columns/Editorial[16][17] In 1981, Livingston spent more than five weeks in Britain interviewing government officials, bankers, businessmen, labor leaders, workers, andmembers of Parliament for a five-part series entitled "English Lessons for America" that compared the U.S. and British economies and earned him the 1981 Overseas Press Club award for Best Business News Reporting from Abroad.[18][19][20]
Livingston's book,The American Stockholder, was published in 1958.[5] The book discusses the role ofstockholders, finding that the average stockholder plays an insignificant role.[21]
The couple initially lived inthe Bronx.[2] Rosalie joined an insurance company in 1928 as an editorial writer, and worked as an editor forYoung Dancer magazine in the 1930s.[26][27] They lived in the New York City area until 1942, when they moved to the Washington, D.C., area.[5]
Livingston resumed investing his investment club's money in 1932 and 1933.[3] The club's portfolio finally became profitable in 1935.[3] His friends, not wanting to press their luck, decided to cash-out and dissolve the club.[3] Livingston and his wife used their proceeds to purchase a farm inBucks County, Pennsylvania.[3]After the war, they lived inPhiladelphia, then returned to Washington, D.C., in 1947. In 1948, they finally settled on their farm in Bucks County while maintaining an apartment inCenter City, Philadelphia.[4][5]
^abcStein, Herbert (April 1990)."Joseph A. Livingston".Business Economics.25 (2). Springer. RetrievedApril 10, 2020 – via Gale in Context: Environmental Studies.
Joseph Livingston speaks to student protesters, september 1969[10]
