[3] He received an undergraduate education at Iowa Wesleyan College and the University of Southern California.

After studying under John Bates Clark and Richard T. Ely at Johns Hopkins University, he received a PhD degree at Cornell University under Walter Francis Willcox in 1894.

[4] He held a joint appointment in economics and sociology at Oberlin College until 1902, when he accepted a position as professor of political economy at Harvard University (1902–1935).

He was the secretary-treasurer of the American Economic Association (1909–1913) and was elected its president in 1916.

[5][8] He wrote on such diverse topics as monetary economics,[9] macroeconomics,[10] the distribution of wealth,[11] the problem of evil,[12] uses of religion,[13] political science,[14] political economy,[15][16] social justice,[17] behavioral economics,[18] social evolution,[19] and the economics of national survival.