Edward C. Harwood

Edward C. Harwood
Edward C. Harwood
Born	(1900-10-28)October 28, 1900
Died	December 16, 1980(1980-12-16) (aged 80)
Nationality	United States
Field	business cycles monetary policy investing philosophy of science
Alma mater	West Point (B.S.) RPI (B.S., M.Eng., M.B.A.)
Influences	Henry George (land value taxation) John Dewey (early work in logic and correspondence on methodology with Arthur F. Bentley) Charles Sanders Peirce William James Gottfried Haberler(early work) L. Albert Hahn (later work) Ralph George Hawtrey Henry Hazlitt William Harold Hutt
Contributions	Opposed John Maynard Keynes (ideas promulgating economic interventionism) Alvin Hansen Paul Samuelson John Kenneth Galbraith

Edward C. Harwood (October 28, 1900 – December 16, 1980) was a 20th-century economist, philosopher of science, and investment advisor who is most known for founding the nonprofit American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) in 1933, which entity survives today in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. AIER is a scientific research organization specialized in economics. It is one of the oldest nonprofit research organizations in the U.S. It is the parent of a for-profit subsidiary, American Investment Services, Inc.

Harwood also established the Behavioral Research Council (BRC) in the early 1950s with two sociologists, George A. Lundberg and Stuart C. Dodd, both professors at the University of Washington. BRC was taken over by AIER in 1984, but some of its work continues tangentially at another nonprofit entity Harwood created called the Progress Foundation (PF), now based in Zurich, Switzerland. More specifically, today PF concerns itself with "conducting and disseminating independent research that fosters greater understanding of the factors that contribute to human progress".

Harwood was born near Boston, Massachusetts, on October 28, 1900. His family moved to Springfield, Mass. when he was a child. His undergraduate work took place at West Point, from which he graduated as a military engineer in 1920. Before and after two four-year stints on Army bases in North Carolina and the Territory of Hawaii, he spent several years at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) earning his three degrees, a B.S., a M.Eng., and an M.B.A. Thereafter in the early 1930s, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Military Science and Tactics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts. After four years there, he was sent to Boston where he oversaw the widening of the Cape Cod Canal for the War Department's Corps of Engineers. During this period he was also appointed Acting Corps Area Engineer for the Works Project Administration's Civilian Conservation Corps program.