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Dr. Paul Medow.
Born on March 10, 1926. Died on May 20, 2005.
Paul Medow was born to Russian émigrés in Prague
in 1926, and grew up in France. He moved to the United States just
before WWII and served in the US army under General Patton. Wounded,
Paul was the recipient of the Purple Heart and narrowly |
His degrees include a Bachelor of Engineering from Cornell University, and a PhD in Economics and International Affairs from Columbia University. His dissertation was based on the works of Joseph Schumpeter, author of Business Cycles. Paul was a student and associate of Karl Polanyi, who was the author of The Great Transformation.
Paul received a Ford Foundation Fellowship, which he used to tour Europe’s major centres of economic thought and to work with economists of international reputation: Ragnar Frisch (Oslo), Oscar Lange (Krakow), V.S. Nemchinov (Moscow), Gunnar Myrdal (Sweden), and Jan Tinburgen (Netherlands).
Before accepting a position in the Department of Economic at York University in 1968, Paul taught at New Jersey’s Rutgers University and New York City’s New School for Social Thought.
At York University, Paul Medow was an expert on the History of Economic Thought and a pioneer of Economic Cybernetics and the application of computers in the field of economics. Paul founded York University’s Systems Planning Laboratory, where his teachings were influenced by MIT Professor Jay Forrester’s System Dynamics techniques and the use of feedback loops to simulate outcomes of economic and demographic scenarios. He was an authority in simulation modeling for which he favoured Ken Iverson’s APL programming language. Paul strove to integrate a healthy respect for the environmental and the sociological aspects of economic theories into his students. Paul Medow’s favourite books included Stafford Beer’s Platform for Change and Brain of the Firm, books which draw parallels between Management Theory and a brain’s management of a live organism.
Fluency in five languages made Paul a natural on the international scene. During the latter part of his career he actively organised conferences for the Institute de la Vie, a Paris based international institute dedicated to a multilateral, multi-disciplinary approach to assessing the state of the world, and the membership of which includes several Nobel Prize winners.
Paul is survived by his wife Inna; sons Serge, Alexei and Andrew; and
Grandchildren Anna, Serge, Andrew, Paul, Alexander and Kristina.
Phone: 514 - 848-8707 / Fax: 514 - 848-4514
E-mail: polanyi@alcor.concordia.ca / Webmaster
| Public Forum |
Manfred Bienefeld on China's Role(s) in the Current Financial Crisis: Cause, Facilitator and / or Solution?Thursday, March 19th, 2009 |
| 11th International Karl Polanyi Conference |
Conference Program |
| Request for Research Collaboration |
Request for Research Collaboration on Karl Polanyi and Edward Palmer Thompson. |
| New Publication |
| Essais de Karl Polanyi. Introduction par Michele Cangiani et Jérôme Maucourant. |
| Institute News |
| SASE Meeting San Jose, Costa Rica
July 21-23, 2008. The theme of the SASE meeting is suggested by Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation.
Professor Jean-Louis Laville Coordinator of European activities of the Karl Polanyi Institute |
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| Selected Papers from Conference: | |
| “Access of Women
to the Economy at the Time of the Integration of the Americas: What
Kind of Economy?”. Concordia University / Université du Québec à Montréal 23-26 April, 2003
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