John Kenneth Galbraith was born in Canada. He earned his doctorate in agricultural economics at the University of California at Berkley. Unlike the majority of economists, he is a staunch believer in permanent price controls. His ability to write in a poetic manner has probably made him one of the most widely read economist in the United States.
Galbraith is most known for his 1967 book,"The New Industrial State", in which he argues that the American economy is dominated by large corporations.
He was an economic adviser to President Roosevelt, President Kennedy, Kennedy's Ambassador to India, and president of Americans for Democratic Action. He was president of the American Economic Association in 1972.
The economic debate between fiscal stimulus in the form of government spending or transfer increases is largely due to Galbraith's "Affluent Society ". In this book, Galbraith argued that a basic weakness of the United States was "private aff luence and public squalor", i.e., too much spending on personal goods and too little spending on public goods.
Works by John Kenneth Galbraith: