W. M. Gorman | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1923-06-17)17 June 1923 |
| Died | 12 January 2003(2003-01-12) (aged 79) Oxford, England |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Trinity College Dublin |
| Doctoral advisor | George Alexander Duncan |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions | Stanford University Johns Hopkins University London School of Economics University of Oxford University of Birmingham |
| Doctoral students | Edwin Mills Martin Feldstein Tim Besley Stephen Nickell Anthony Shorrocks James M. Poterba[1] |
William Moore "Terence" Gorman (17 June 1923 – 12 January 2003) was an Irish economist and academic.[2][3] He was predominantly a theorist and is most famous for his work onaggregation andseparability of goods, and in this context he developed his famousGorman polar form. Gorman's career saw him teach atUniversity of Birmingham,Oxford, and theLondon School of Economics. He was honoured with the Presidency of theEconometric Society in 1972. His work was often highlytechnical and theoretical in nature, which made him incomprehensible to many of his contemporaries, but his keen eye for applications has given his work a lasting influence on modern economics.
Gorman was born inKesh inCounty Fermanagh,Northern Ireland, on 17 June 1923. He spent his early childhood inLusaka, Rhodesia, where his African nanny called him Terence, saying that William was not a proper Irish name; he was subsequently known as Terence, or 'Terry', throughout his life. After his father was shot dead when Gorman was only four years old, he returned with his mother and her staff to her family estate inCounty Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, where he was brought up.
He attended Mount Temple School inRathgar,[3] andFoyle College inDerry before moving on toTrinity College Dublin, in 1941, where he waselected a Scholar in mathematics in 1943.[4] From 1943 to 1946, he interrupted his studies to serve in theRoyal Navy as arating and thenpetty officer, before returning to graduate in 1948 in economics and in 1949 in mathematics. While at Trinity, he met his future wife, Dorinda. Gorman was highly influenced by Trinity Professor George A. Duncan, as well as by Professor James Davidson at Foyle College.
He began his academic career at the University of Birmingham in England, where he taught from 1949 to 1962. Birmingham, at that time, was a leading centre for theoretical research, employing professors includingFrank Hahn, and Maurice McManus. It was during this period that what is now calledGorman polar form was rigorously introduced in an article entitled, "On a class of preference fields," published in the journal Metroeconomica, in August 1961.
After Birmingham, he held the chair of economics at Oxford from 1962, and subsequently the chair at the London School of Economics in 1967, where he introduced an American-style mathematical economics programme. He was a fellow ofNuffield College at Oxford from 1979, a senior research fellow in 1984 and an emeritus fellow in 1990. He also spent some time in the United States as a visiting fellow, when he was engaged in research at theIowa,Johns Hopkins, theNorth Carolina, and atStanford.
After retirement, he continued to live in Oxford, although he spent his summers inCounty Cork, until in his last years illness impaired his mobility.
Gorman credited his early education at Foyle College and Trinity College Dublin for teaching him "to think of mathematics and economics as styles of thought, not collections oftheorems," and his experience at Birmingham taught him "to think of thesocial sciences as a unity with history as one way of holding them together".[2] With this foundation, Gorman's theory was based both inempirical research and on the opinions and views of social scientists. Above all, however, Gorman was a mathematically talented economist, and his penchant for inter-disciplinarianism was only present in as much as that diversity presented him with tools to use or develop to explore the links between individual preferences and market behaviour.
The Gorman Lectures in Economics, named after W. M. Gorman, is an annual event that takes place at the Department of Economics ofUniversity College London. The lectures are not confined to any sub-discipline of economics, and they are usually developed into a book, published by co-sponsor,Princeton University Press. The first lectures were delivered by theNobel Laureate ProfessorJames Heckman ofChicago University in December 2001.Avinash Dixit delivered the lectures in 2003.Robert M. Townsend ofMIT delivered them in 2010. The 2011 lecture was given byJerry Hausman ofMIT and the 2013 lecture byPierre-Andre Chiappori ofColumbia.
