He then joined the University of Wisconsin–Madison to earn his Ph.D. Taylor's original intention upon going to Wisconsin was to take up a career as a statesman in order to represent farmers.
The dean was impressed by the prepared syllabus and eventually Taylor set up an agricultural economics course for four-year students.
Wisconsin's new Department of Agriculture was asked to provide leadership in improving the marketing of dairy as the state was seeing a recent shift toward greater milk production.
For this, he invited his long-time friend and head of the Department of Economics at Iowa State College Benjamin Horace Hibbard.
Not long after his arrival in Washington, the wartime prices of farm products collapsed, which proved disastrous for a great number of farmers.
In 1920, President Harding appointed Henry C. Wallace, who knew Taylor and was himself a great supporter of farmers, as the new Secretary of Agriculture.
Among them, two of his Ph.D. students he had already sent to work with Spillman, Oscar C. Stine and Oliver Edwin Baker, and Lewis Cecil Gray, whom he persuaded to go with him to Washington.
[2] One of the major issues at the time was the controversy surrounding the first McNary–Haugen Farm Relief Bill in 1924 and other farmer subsidies proposals, however Taylor later stated his own involvement was only indirect.
[2] Despite his short government career, he was still able to make major contributions to the Department of Agriculture, which had become one of the first great economic research organizations in the United States.
[1][3] Disappointed by his termination, he went on to give speeches to farm groups, especially in Iowa, with the main message that Washington was more interested in providing cheap food to urban workers than the welfare of farmers.
[2] Taylor returned to his academic career, briefly rejoining Ely, then going to Northwestern University to work with the Institute for Research in Land Economics until 1928.
[6] Taylor then left the United States and traveled through Japan, China, Korea, and India as a member of the Commission of Appraisal of the Layman's Foreign Missions Inquiry for one year, in which he reviewed the work done by missionaries on rural problems.
This allowed him to devote himself to writing his book, The Story of Agricultural Economics, with his wife Anne Dewees Taylor, and the foundation's sponsorship.
With its completion in 1952, Taylor began a study of land scarcity in highly industrialized nations like England, Germany, and Japan, and how their economies were adapting with the loss of their colonies.
[1] However Taylor himself noted the pioneer work of five of his contemporaries in the field along with him: Andrew Boss, William J. Spillman, and George F. Warren, from a background in agronomy, and Benjamin H. Hibbard and Thomas Nixon Carver, who along with himself were students of Richard T. Ely in general economics.
[4] Taylor nonetheless embraced this role as a sort of elder statesman, and accepted many visitors to his home, including many young agricultural economists.