Raymond Vernon; Pioneering Scholar on Global Economy

Raymond Vernon, government official and pioneering scholar on the global economy, has died. He was 85.

Vernon, who had taught and done research at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University since 1956, died Thursday of cancer at his home in Cambridge, Mass.

One of the first to discuss “globalism” and the influence of multinational companies on individual governments’ policies, Vernon published several books on international economics including “Sovereignty at Bay” in 1973, “Storm Over the Multinationals” in 1977, “Exploring the Global Economy” in 1985 and “Beyond Globalism” in 1988.

National controls on trade with other nations declined, Vernon found, as the power of multinational manufacturing and distribution increased.

“The spectacular decline in the cost of moving goods, people and--especially--information across national borders has left governments with little room for unilateral action and little choice but to find changed forms of mutual accommodation,” he told The Times in 1989.

The New York-born son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Vernon helped his father deliver seltzer water as a child. He graduated from City College of New York and earned a doctorate in economics from Columbia University.

Before turning to scholarly pursuits, Vernon spent nearly two decades with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission and the State Department. After World War II, he helped reconstruct the European economy as a member of the Marshall Plan staff.

He also helped develop the International Monetary Fund and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and in the early 1950s helped foster trade with Soviet-bloc nations.

Vernon spent a brief two years--from 1954 to 1956--in private industry, overseeing planning, finance and new products for the candy-maker Forrest Mars Sr. He led development of chocolate-covered peanut M&M;’s and became known in the candy business as “the man who put the crunch in M&M;’s.”

A widower, Vernon is survived by two daughters, Heidi Vernon and Susan Vernon Gerstenfeld; two brothers and a sister; four grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.