Ezra Solomon, 82; Nixon Aide, Economics Expert

Ezra Solomon, a Stanford University economist credited with making the study of finance more theory-based, died of a stroke Dec. 9 at his campus home. He was 82.

Solomon was the author of “The Theory of Financial Management,” which was published in 1963 and is still considered a seminal work by finance scholars. Beginning in 1965, he was also editor for several years of the Prentice-Hall series “Foundation of Finance,” which was influential in accounting and finance.

As adept in the world of policy as he was in academe, he served on President Nixon’s Council of Economic Advisors from 1971 to 1973, when the Nixon administration suspended the gold standard for the dollar and imposed wage and price controls in an attempt to remold the world economy.

Before teaching at Stanford, Solomon served on the faculty at the University of Chicago, home of a school of economists who emphasized the importance of regulating the supply of money to direct the economy. Despite his long association with the Chicago school, Solomon was known for his analytical, nondoctrinaire thinking.

He gave U.S. senators an inkling of his independence during his confirmation hearing in June 1971.

“I am not against letting the dollar float. It is one way of finding parity,” he said.

“A lot of people go to Washington and wind up thinking they can give political advice,” said former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, who was a colleague of Solomon when both taught at the University of Chicago. “Ezra stuck to economic advice and agreed with the fundamentals. He was a gifted economist, with real wit, and had a wonderful, candid, clear way of expressing himself.”

Solomon, born and raised in Burma (now Myanmar), earned a degree in economics from the University of Rangoon in 1940. Soon after his graduation, the Japanese army occupied Burma, forcing his family to flee to India.

He joined the Burma Division of the British Royal Navy and became commander of a gunboat. He left his command in 1947 to accept a fellowship for overseas graduate study at the University of Chicago, where he soon became a professor and a naturalized U.S. citizen. He earned his doctorate in 1950 and remained on the Chicago faculty until 1956, when he moved west.

At Stanford, he became founding director of the International Center for the Advancement of Management Education, which drew faculty from business schools in developing nations for a year of intensive study. He later became the business school’s first Dean Witter Distinguished Professor of Finance.

During his three decades at Stanford, he wrote 13 books and more than 100 papers, and was known for his incisive lectures and generous mentoring.

“He became a leader in transforming [Stanford’s] Graduate School of Business, then a parochial West Coast school, into a world-class academic institution,” said economist and longtime Stanford colleague Gerald Meier.

His wife of 53 years, the former Janet Lorraine Cameron, died Nov. 14. Solomon is survived by three daughters, Catherine Shan Solomon of Newark, Calif., Ming Solomon Lovejoy of Eureka, Mont., and Lorna Solomon-Oyarce of Stanford; and five grandchildren.