Edward P. Lazear has been named the Morris Arnold Cox Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. The appointment was announced at the annual Washington, D.C., meeting of the Hoover Institution Board of Overseers in late February.
“We are delighted to name Edward Lazear as the first holder of the Cox chair,” said Hoover Institution director John Raisian. “Edward is one of Hoover’s best scholars, an eminent economist with an exquisite understanding of the workings of markets, and the important role of incentives. Knowing of Mr. Cox’s interests in free market economic principles, I am confident that he would be pleased with the unfolding of this gesture to him.”
The Morris Arnold Cox chair is funded by Cox’s widow, Mrs. Nona Jean Cox of Portola Valley, Calif., and Duncan and Shirley Cox Matteson of Menlo Park, Calif., Morris Cox’s daughter and son-in-law.
“Our family is proud to join the Hoover Institution in honoring the memory of Morris Arnold Cox by establishing an endowed chair in his name. The values reflected in his life, in his business career, and in his philanthropic endeavors mirror those of the Hoover Institution,” said Duncan and Shirley Cox Matteson.
Mr. Cox, who died in 1986 at the age of 77, worked in various roles at William Volker & Company, a wholesale household furnishings company originally based in Kansas City, Missouri, and later in Burlingame, Calif. He retired as chairman of the board in 1975, after 37 years of service.
“Today’s continuing success of the Hoover Institution is in large part attributable to the huge contribution of the Volker Fund, an endowment of tens of millions of dollars that support the domestic research programs of the Institution,” said Raisian. “As chairman of the Volker Foundation, Morris Cox was key in arranging for a gift of $7 million which has grown tenfold today. We are delighted to honor his achievement of adding to Hoover’s lustre by naming one of our distinguished fellows in his name. Furthermore, we are deeply grateful to Nona Jean Cox, Morris’s widow, and to Duncan and Shirley Cox Matteson, their daughter and son-in-law. It is their gift that truly honors Morris Cox.”
Mrs. Cox graduated from Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri; Duncan and Shirley Cox Matteson graduated from the University of Missouri. After college, Shirley and Duncan lived in Menlo Park, now their home for more than 40 years, where they raised their two children, Duncan “Matt” Matteson Jr., and Melissa Matteson Badger. Shirley and Duncan have established distinguished records as business, community, and charitable leaders on the Peninsula, as have their children, following the example set by Mr. and Mrs. Cox.
Duncan is co-chair of The Greater Bay Bank. Together, Duncan and Shirley acquired and managed extensive real estate holdings in California through the family firm, The Matteson Companies. Shirley and Duncan each have served in many leadership capacities at Stanford University, including Shirley’s service on the Stanford University Hospital Board of Directors and as a founding member of The Health Library. Both have served on numerous community boards and continue to devote substantial time and resources to community and charitable causes.
“It is truly an honor to be named to this position,” said Edward P. Lazear. “Morris Cox was extremely important to Hoover's growth over the past three decades and I am pleased to be able to hold a chair carrying his name. The Cox and Matteson families are wonderful people who have been great supporters of Hoover and I look forward to working with them more closely.”
Lazear is also the Jack Steele Parker Professor of Human Resources, Management and Economics at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, where he has taught since 1992. He taught previously at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business.
Founding editor of the Journal of Labor Economics, he is also an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society, and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Lazear was the first vice president and president of the Society of Labor Economists.
His book Personnel Economics (MIT Press, 1995) expands on his 1993 Wicksell Lectures. He edited Economic Transition in Eastern Europe and Russia: Realities of Reform (Hoover Institution Press, 1995). Coauthor or coeditor of four other books, Lazear's newest edited volume is Education in the Twenty-first Century (Hoover Institution Press, 2002). He also edited the textbook Personnel Economics for Managers (Wiley, 1998). Other recent publications include Culture Wars in America (Hoover Essays in Public Policy, 1996).
Lazear has written extensively on labor markets and personnel issues; microeconomic theory; issues involving worker compensation and effects on productivity; government policies on discrimination, affirmative action, and comparable worth; the doctrine of employment at will; distribution of income within the household; and pricing and marketing policies.
A past visiting professor at the Institutes for Advanced Study in Vienna and Jerusalem, the Institut des Etudes Politiques in Paris, and the Center for the Study of New Institutional Economics at the University of Saarlandes in Germany, Lazear has also lectured by invitation at other premier institutions worldwide. He was the 1993 Wicksell Lecturer in Stockholm, Sweden; received the 1994 Distinguished Teaching Award from Stanford University's Graduate School of Business; and has an honorary doctorate from Albertson College of Idaho. In 1998, Lazear was awarded the Leo Melamed Biennial Prize for outstanding research.
Lazear received his A.B. and A.M. degrees from the University of California at Los Angeles and his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.
The Hoover Institution, founded at Stanford University in 1919 by Herbert Hoover, who went on to become the 31st president of the United States, is an interdisciplinary research center for advanced study on domestic public policy and international affairs.
