Fred Rogers Fairchild was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 economist and educator. Fairchild was born in Crete, Nebraska. His father was Arthur Babbitt Fairchild, a descendant of Thomas Fairchild who settled in New England in 1639. He was a brother of Henry Pratt Fairchild

Henry Pratt Fairchild

Henry Pratt Fairchild was a distinguished American sociologist. He was a sociologist who was actively involved in many of the controversial issues of his time. He wrote about race relations, abortion and contraception, and immigration...

, a sociologist and educator. Fairchild attended Doane College

Doane College

Doane College is a private liberal arts college in Crete, Nebraska, United States, with additional campuses located in Lincoln and Grand Island.-History:...

 (AB, 1898) in Crete and Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 (PhD, 1904). He also received an honorary LL.D. from Doane in 1929. Fairchild taught economics at Yale for many years. He was a holder of the Knox Chair of Economics. He was published widely, and his work included well received text books.

Fairchild was an honorary member of the National Tax Association, an educational association of taxation experts. His primary field of study was federal taxation in the United States. In a 1920 journal article published in the American Economic Review

American Economic Review

The American Economic Review is a peer-reviewed academic journal of economics publishing seven issues annually by the American Economic Association. First published in 1911, it is considered one of the most prestigious journals in the field. The current editor-in-chief is Penny Goldberg . The...

, Fairchild proposed a restructuring of the post-war

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 U.S. federal taxation system in light of calls for the repeal of the excess profits tax

Excess profits tax

In the United States, an excess profits tax is a tax, some say excise tax, on any profit above a certain amount. A predominantly wartime fiscal instrument, the tax was designed primarily to capture wartime profits that exceeded normal peacetime profits....

 enacted during wartime. He recommended, in order to ensure a "reasonable revenue to the government and justice to the various classes of taxpayers", that corporations be exempt from income taxes and instead that shareholder

Shareholder

A shareholder or stockholder is an individual or institution that legally owns one or more shares of stock in a public or private corporation. Shareholders own the stock, but not the corporation itself ....

 dividend

Dividend

Dividends are payments made by a corporation to its shareholder members. It is the portion of corporate profits paid out to stockholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, that money can be put to two uses: it can either be re-invested in the business , or it can be distributed to...

s become subject to the income tax

Income tax

An income tax is a tax levied on the income of individuals or businesses . Various income tax systems exist, with varying degrees of tax incidence. Income taxation can be progressive, proportional, or regressive. When the tax is levied on the income of companies, it is often called a corporate...

.

Influence

In an article about the proper level for the capital gains tax, Bruce Bartlett

Bruce Bartlett

Bruce Bartlett is an American historian who turned to writing about supply-side economics. He was a domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan and was a Treasury official under President George H.W. Bush....

, a senior fellow at NCPA

National Center for Policy Analysis

The National Center for Policy Analysis is a non-profit American conservative think tank whose goals are to develop and promote private alternatives to government regulation and control...

, cites Fairchild,

Fred Rogers Fairchild of Yale probably spoke for most economists of the day when he said, “the weight of economic authority supports the theory that mere growth in value of capital is not income.” (citing Fred Rogers Fairchild, “Federal Taxation of Income and Profits,” American Economic Review, Vol. 11, No. 1, March 1921, p. 150.)

In a publication for the Foundation for Economic Education

Foundation for Economic Education

The Foundation for Economic Education is one of the oldest free-market organizations established in the United States to study and advance the freedom philosophy. Murray Rothbard recognizes FEE for creating a "crucial open center" that he credits with launching the movement...

, Hans F. Sennholz writes,

In the academic world, a few eminent scholars such as B. M. Anderson, H. J. Davenport, F. R. Fairchild, F. H. Knight, and W. A. Paton scorned the New Deal which was holding sway in education and communication."

Publications

• Understanding our Free Economy, with Thomas J. Shelley. D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc. 1962.
• Economics, MacMillan Company. 1948.
• Elementary Economics: Volume I, with Edgar Stevenson Furniss and Norman Sydney Buck. MacMillan Company. 1927
• Elementary Economics: Volume II, with Edgar Stevenson Furniss and Norman Sydney Buck. MacMillan Company. 1927.
• Essentials of Economics, American book Co. 1931.
• A description of the "New Deal", John Clifford Lecture. MacMillan Company. 1934.