Parsing the Precedents

Arthur Levitt cites the creation of several business and economics organizations in the early 20th century as possible models for what business leaders today might strive for if they wish to restore public confidence in markets.

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based National Bureau of Economic Research is widely recognized as the nation's leading nonprofit economic research organization. Founded in 1920, the NBER would, in the words of co-founder Malcolm Rorty, "devote itself to fact finding on controversial economic subjects of interest to the public" with the hope that the research would "command public confidence" and be accepted as "conclusive by all parties." Today, NBER is a private, nonpartisan organization whose influential working papers are cited by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and whose distinguished researchers, past and present, have accounted for 12 of the 31 Americans to be awarded the Nobel Prize in economics.

In 1919 the business leader and philanthropist Edward Filene founded the Cooperative League to promote the nascent credit union movement. Filene believed that the affordable loans offered by credit unions would increase the purchasing power of the population and increase employment and prosperity. Today, Filene's work is entrusted to the League's modern incarnation, The Century Foundation, which sponsors and supervises research on economic, social and political issues.

As the nation mobilized for war in 1942 a group of business leaders formed the Committee for Economic Development to aid the business-government war effort. In the post-war years the CED aided the recovery of war-shattered economies by encouraging support for the Marshall Plan, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Sixty years later the CED is a nonpartisan policy research organization that uses the expertise of the business and education communities to improve early childhood education and healthcare and seek solutions for other long-term social and economic problems.

- Justin Gerdes, Editorial Intern