Carl McGuire ('35) earned his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Missouri in 1939. His dissertation research analyzed whether the policy of cities and towns in Missouri of providing financial subsidies to shoe manufacturing factories actually influenced the firms' location decisions for production and employment. Such subsidies were as common in the early part of this century as they are now. His primary findings were that the subsidies themselves did not provide enough fiscal advantage to sway such decisions, but rather acted as a signal to firms that the local governments would act cooperatively down the road in terms of regulations, taxes, and the like. Of course, the firms were happy to take any subsidies they could get but it was the signaling aspect of the subsidy competition that really mattered. Interestingly, research of this kind is very current today and Carl's work anticipated many of the newer findings.
After a brief time on the faculty at DePauw University in Indiana, Carl was hired by the University of Colorado in 1941. After spending nearly three years in the Army during World War II, he returned to the faculty at Colorado in 1945. Although there was no Department of Economics at that time, faculty in Economics, Political Science, Sociology, and Anthropology were grouped together into a social sciences department. This arrangement was well-suited for Carl's interests in subjects of an interdisciplinary nature.
One of his early papers, "Point Four and the National Power of the United States," (The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, volume 11, 1952) used economic and foreign-relations perspectives to assert that the postwar U.S. aggressive foreign aid policy would effectively enhance American power in its effort to contain communism. He proposed that aid would result in expanded trade and investment, thereby further cementing American alliance relations in the developing world.
Carl's main area of interest became the economic and political development of Arab nations, with a focus on the prospects for economic integration in the region. Along with Ragaei El Mallakh, an Egyptian professor on the faculty of CU, he founded a center for energy research within the department in 1973. This in time led to the International Research Center and Institute for Energy and Economic Development (ICEED). Carl has been an active and enthusiastic participant in that venture from the beginning, through helping organize and run its major annual conference on energy economics and serving for over a decade as book review editor for its publication, the Journal of Energy and Development. In fact, Carl has been on the board of directors of ICEED since its inception.
Carl served as chairman of the department from 1963 to 1969, during which several prominent established economists, including John Cassells, Irving Morrisett, Lawrence Senesh, and Kenneth Boulding, were hired. Equally important was the recruitment of the numerous younger faculty members who provided a foundation for the department in the ensuing years, including Barry Poulson, Frank Hsiao, Larry Singell, and Fred Glahe. In short, Carl's chairmanship provided the basis for the strong research and teaching orientation of the Department of Economics today.
After teaching for four decades Carl retired in 1980 but remained an active presence in the department and The McGuire Center. He was a major benefactor and friend to the department, endowing the Carl McGuire Center for International Economics upon his retirement. It is this Center that has been instrumental in helping to make the department a noted center of excellence in this area.
Professor Emeritus Carl McGuire passed away on June 25, 2001 at the age of 90. He is sorely missed.
Ann Carlos 7/30/01