Malcolm C. Rorty

He is known as one of the founding members of the Econometric Society,[1] and co-founder of the National Bureau of Economic Research,[2] and in 1931 was elected presidents of the American Statistical Association.

Rorty wrote numerous monographs on economic topics in which he opposed an "ultra-conservative viewpoint",[3] and defended "a laissez-faire approach to business".

In 1910, he came to New York to organize the commercial engineering department of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, of which he became chief statistician.

[6] In World War I he served at the Inter-allied Munition Council and officer of the General Staff, and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

They later decided to join forces[10] to initiate "an organization that devoted itself to fact finding on controversial economic subjects of great public interests.

Catlin (1962) explained: Roger W. Babson first published his Business Barometers during the crisis of 1907 during the crisis of 1907, and assured those who followed his chart, based on the Newtonian law of action and reaction, that they would "slowly but surely create for their institutions and for themselves huge fortunes..."[15]About Rorty's contribution Catlin (1962) explained, that "Rorty, developed its index of general business conditions in the United States, as a guide to its executives in making plans and decisions.

He knows that when statisticians make a map or rather present a picture of business variations covering a period of years the portrait is a snaky curve that undulates up and down across an imaginary normal line, with peaks representing “prosperity” and valleys representing “hard times.“ The typical cycle, or one undulation of the snake, is shown in the accompanying diagram, which is the work of one of Colonel Rorty’s associates.

At an early stage in many periods of prosperity, he points out, simultaneous overcommitments to business extensions and new ventures are made in most, if not in all, branches of industry.

The milder periods of prosperity and recession arise from mere current readjustments of production, distribution and consumption.

Admitting that sometimes it is difficult to decide to which of these three types a given case belongs, Colonel Rorty holds that this classification clarifies the problem, and explains why no one theory accounts in satisfactory fashion for all cycles.