John Vincent C. Nye, Ph.D., associate professor of economics in Arts and Sciences, is in the vanguard of a new generation of economic historians who are using the modern tools of economic science to re-examine and, in some cases, rewrite the past.
"I'm very interested in using the power of the economic way of thinking to address historical questions," said Nye, who also is an adjunct professor of history in Arts and Sciences. "The field has tremendous potential to enhance our understanding of current social, economic and political conditions while offering important lessons for improving public policies.
"It's very important in this day and age, when trade policy is the subject of such debate, to be aware that throughout history even very small changes in trade policy have had grave consequences -- outcomes that have been nearly impossible to forecast and equally difficult to remedy."
Nye, a specialist in French economic history, industrial organization and political economy of trade, has made a career out of exposing popular misconceptions. His detailed economic analyses of historical commercial records have shown that many long-accepted opinions about the economic structure of turn-of-the-century Europe are simply wrong.
In 1991, for instance, Nye published a paper in the Journal of Economic History debunking the long-held myth that Britain was a bastion of free trade and France a fortress of protectionism in the 19th century. Nye demonstrated that, contrary to popular and scholarly opinion, Britain actually had much higher average tariffs than France during most of the century.
"While the British talked free trade and did make significant reforms, they retained almost all of their restrictions on the import of wine, spirits and other consumables," Nye said. "The French, while never espousing an ideological commitment to free trade, had, in fact, made very dramatic liberalizations in their tariffs and trade policies, matching any changes Britain made."
Economists long have used "fortress France" as a case study in how a nation's economy can be helped or harmed by protectionist tariffs. Nye in no way disputes the benefits of free trade. His study simply establishes that scholars have relied on a fallacious notion of French history in constructing and supporting economic models and theories. The models still may be valid, but their foundations must be re-examined in light of new evidence, he said.
"What stands out about John Nye is his great enthusiasm for and his willingness to work on interdisciplinary teaching and research," said Jean Ensminger, Ph.D., associate professor of anthropology in Arts and Sciences.
Ensminger and Nye are planning an interdisciplinary course on economic development that would create new ways of looking at development questions in the Third World. She and Nye also are considering writing a book on these issues.
"As an anthropologist, I'm interested in development in the contemporary world, especially in Africa," Ensminger said. "Nye is an economic historian who studies how, when and why some countries take off while others fall on hard times. It's clear that developing countries have quite a lot to learn from the economic mistakes and successes of the past."
Nye's multidisciplinary interests span the Hilltop Campus. He is affiliated with the Center in Political Economy; the Business, Law and Economics Center; and the Committee on Social Thought and Analysis.
"I have always been very impressed by the sheer amount of interdisciplinary work that goes on here at Washington University," said Nye, who joined the faculty in 1985. "It's unusually common here for faculty from different areas to get together informally to discuss their work."
Nye's energy and expertise also are in demand off campus. He has lectured at universities and institutes throughout the United States and in Canada, France and Iceland. He has taught market principles to students from formerly communist countries at the University of Tübingen in Germany and at the Budapest University of Economics in Hungary. Nye was a visiting scholar at Stanford University in 1995 and will return in the 1996-97 academic year as a National Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution.
Nye's latest mission is his emerging role as co-director of the Institute for the Study of Economic Performance Over Time, a center recently established here to honor and explore the work of Douglass C. North, Ph.D., the Henry R. Luce Professor of Law and Liberty in Arts and Sciences and the 1993 recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
North has spent a lifetime developing new theories about how economies and institutions evolve over time. For much of the last decade, he has been Nye's mentor at Washington University.
"John and I have become a nice complementary pair," North said. "I have the imagination and the experience to figure out where it is we should be going, but John has the skills to get us there. He has all the sophisticated tools and a mind that can run circles around me. He truly has one of the finest minds I have encountered. He can go miles ahead of where I can go."
Nye proudly describes himself as the University's "No. 2 economic historian," and he clearly savors his role as North's intellectual sparring partner -- as the critical sounding board for the Nobel laureate's more eccentric economic theories. North with equal pride refers to Nye as "my young colleague."
"Nye is technically immensely competent," North said. "He has all the tools one needs for complex economic analysis, but he also has a very broad and imaginative mind. It's clear that he will be a major player and innovator in both economics and economic history."
Nye has spent most of his life acquiring the very skills necessary to carry North's theories into the next century. He was born in the Philippines in 1959, the son of a successful Chinese businessman who fled Shanghai during the communist takeover of 1949. His mother, a native Filipino, is now a leading appeals court judge in the Philippines.
While North spent the 1970s developing his theories about the economic importance of institutions, Nye began undergraduate studies at the California Institute of Technology. He majored in physics, but his attraction to the humanities and social sciences remained strong. In his junior year, Nye managed to conduct research in physics under a Richter Grant while teaching English literature at Caltech.
He earned a bachelor's degree in physics in 1981 from Caltech but realized that "physics was not for me." Nye enrolled in the doctoral program in economics at Northwestern University and immersed himself in statistical analysis and highly mathematical economic theory. It was at Northwestern where he first crossed paths with North.
"John sat in on one of my presentations at Northwestern, and he was more than aggressive in his questioning," North said. "In fact, he challenged me every step of the way. Of course, I was delighted by that, and I was so impressed by him that I helped bring him to Washington University."
Nye earned a master's degree in economics in 1983 and stayed on to earn a doctorate in economics in 1985 from Northwestern. He notes with satisfaction that many °of his doctoral advisers discouraged his interest in economic history.
"They told me that economic history was a backwater and that I'd be wasting my potential there," Nye said. "It turns out that in recent years many of Northwestern's most successful economics graduates have come out of economic history. It was especially gratifying for me when North won the Nobel for his work in economic history."
Nye is currently writing a book detailing the dramatic and often unintended long-range consequences of the trade wars that pitted Britain against France for more than two centuries.
"What started out as a small dispute over French wine imports in the 17th century came to have tremendous economic consequences -- imposing large costs on both consumers and producers -- in both France and Britain," Nye said. "The dispute also had important social ramifications. If not for the trade wars, Great Britain would now be a nation of wine drinkers rather than beer quaffers."
A sampling of comments from his students' course evaluations: "Nye is an economic stud who can answer any question and explain anything. ... Nye is very inspiring, very impassioned, a joy. ... Keep up! Nye moves very fast. ... Both demanding and rewarding. ..."
Nye and recently graduated economics doctoral student Janice Rye Kinghorn have just co-authored an article comparing turn-of-the-century industry size and structure in the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany. Once again, the article overturns some widely held views in the field.
"Nye's courses are great because he disagrees with almost every book that he assigns for class," Kinghorn said. "He loves to question what everyone else has accepted as fact. If you're looking for new areas to research, his lectures are full of ideas."
Randall Nielsen, a doctoral candidate, noted that Nye has a reputation for very pointed and aggressive questioning during academic seminars and research presentations. Nye's presence in a seminar can strike fear in the hearts of young scholars, but Nielsen contends the end result is worthwhile.
"Part of the game in an academic presentation is to present your work and see if it holds up. If it holds up for John, you know that it will hold up anywhere," Nielsen said.
Nye is known as something of a "Renaissance Man." He is conversant on subjects ranging from literature and poetry to high-fidelity recording and classical music. An avid audiophile, he pens a regular column on high-quality recordings for a local classical music magazine.
"He has a rich background of having read very broadly," North said. "It's rare to find people with his technical abilities who also have such a broad background in literature, culture and the social sciences. It's a great combination for the type of work he's doing."
-- Gerry Everding
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