Colm, Gerhard

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COLM, GERHARD

COLM, GERHARD (1897–1968), U.S. economist. Colm, who was born in Hanover, served in World War i as an officer in the German Army and was decorated. In 1922 he began his professional career as a government statistician and became deputy director of the Institute for World Economy in Kiel. In 1933, with the advent of Hitler, he emigrated to the United States, and was professor of economics at the New School for Social Research in New York, 1933–39, and an adviser to the Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Budget, and the Council of Economic Advisers. In 1952 he joined the National Planning Association, and was frequently called upon as consultant to the government. His publications include: Economic Theory of Public Finance (1927); Economic Consequences of Recent American Tax Policy (with Fritz Lehmann, 1938); Essays in Public Finance and Fiscal Policy (1955) contains a list of his writings; The Economy of the American People (1958); and Integration of National Planning and Budgeting (1968).

[Joachim O. Ronall]