Presidential Politics Play Role in NABE—in Early Years and 2008

[Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of articles planned in observance of NABE's 50th Anniversary]

It was an unintended consequence of their timing and location. But when all was said and done, NABE’s founders agreed that their unplanned foray into the 1960 presidential election helped put the young organization on the map.

So it seems fitting that NABE is celebrating its 50th anniversary in an election year. In 2008 NABE is preparing to host its 24th Washington Policy Conference from March 2-4 and will hold its annual meeting Oct. 5-7 in the nation’s capital.  Both gatherings will bring top policymakers and prominent private analysts together to address key policy issues in this national election year.

Such high profile meetings were not routine in the early years, as NABE’s leaders were most concerned with building membership and striving for recognition as professional economists who were distinct from their academic counterparts, according to George James, who served as the organization’s sixth president from 1964-65. “We really had to define who we were,” he said in a Feb. 2 phone interview.

Candidate Nixon’s “Invitation”

In October of 1960, NABE’s founders were about to open the group’s second annual meeting at New York University when Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon “decided that our meeting would be a good forum for a major economic policy statement, and was therefore, inviting himself to speak,” recalled then president George Cline Smith in the 1989 History of the National Association of Business Economists.

The annual meeting was scheduled between the third and fourth Nixon-Kennedy debates, which were both broadcast from New York City.  Nixon had made a poor showing and was looking for ways to revive his campaign, NABE officials recalled.

“It happened out of the blue.  Our program was already set and when I arrived in New York, it had been decided” to accept Nixon’s proposal to give a major economic policy speech before the NABE meeting, former president Charles Reeder said in a Jan. 29 phone interview. 

“Some in our group didn’t want to do it as it would appear partisan.  So we invited [Senator] John Kennedy, too, but he declined,” Reeder said.  Chaos ensued as Secret Service agents and political advance men arrived within hours of NABE agreeing that Nixon could speak.

Scrambling To Fill Seats

Turnout was a concern for Nixon campaign staffers, Reeder said, and they quickly rounded up NYU faculty and students to fill rows of empty seats.  “An urgent call went out, and the empty seats were quickly filled by the entire NYU Business School and the whole economics department,” he said.

Reporters and photographers from the New York Times covered the speech, and Reeder said that he and other officers agreed “it helped put NABE’s name out there.”   Unfortunately, the Times article misstated the organization’s name as the Association of Business Economists, and other newspapers picked up the error. Smith recalled, however, “it was a major policy address and it got us lots of publicity.”

In his speech before NABE, Nixon lamented “the potential gold crisis that might result from his opponent’s monetary policies, the price of gold was rising as much as $5 an ounce on the London market,” according to the 1989 history.  Discussion of gold prices and prospects for a crisis dominated a session at the meeting later, which brought about a realization that many business economists were at a loss to explain why gold had jumped to $40 an ounce.

“The expansive good feeling generated by Nixon’s appearance was thus tempered by the rather humbling recognition that even the members of a professional society of business economists had some significant gaps in their knowledge.  The furtherance of economic education would become a continuing goal of the association,” according to the book.

Moving from Academics to Emerging Profession

It was not NABE’s goal at the time to “enter into politics at all,” Reeder said in the phone interview.  The group’s founders were working on more basic issues –such as defining what is a business economist and how they are different from academic economists.  The founders started NABE in 1959 because they saw a need for the emerging profession of business economics to bring its practitioners together to better learn forecasting and other tools of the trade.  Most had been members of the American Economics Association with its focus on academic economists and research.

“We didn’t want to offend our academic colleagues, but we weren’t teaching economics or researching. We were on the battle front every day and we needed forecasting tools to do our jobs,” James said in the phone interview.

Roughly the first five years of NABE’s history were focused on growth and creating a workable structure.  It was about at the six-year mark that NABE leadership became convinced that the organization “was going to make it,” James said.  He was the sixth president, serving from 1964-65, and membership had grown.

Membership totaled more than 500 members by 1961 and a year later NABE published its first membership directory.  Raising sufficient funds through dues and charging for events remained a challenge in the first several years.  For many years, the association’s “account averaged between $3,000 and $5,000, and was frequently drawn upon to avoid impending default in the operating budget,” according to the 1989 history.

The first salary survey was conducted in mid-1964 and the responses were tabulated that fall.  With a response rate of 56 percent, the survey results were published early in 1965.  NABE began to sponsor topical seminars in 1961, covering subjects that included the balance of payments, international trade, and anti-trust issues.

As of January 2008, NABE’s membership totals 2,350 and the organization continues its long tradition of sponsoring professional development seminars and surveys.  In this election cycle, NABE has sponsored a debate among top economic advisers to leading candidates in both parties, providing an educational forum focusing on key economic issues and policy options that will face the new president and Congress.

Welcoming the more than 200 people gathered for the Nov. 9 debate at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., NABE President Ellen Hughes-Cromwick, chief economist, Ford Motor Company, said “it is our hope that this program will broaden our understanding of the candidates’ economic policy proposals in a way that is deeper than what we might hear on the campaign trail.”

More than 30 journalists covered the debate in November and C-SPAN carried it live. And, unlike in 1960, there was no need for a last-minute scramble to fill seats as NABE members and their guests packed the ballroom.