In Shanghai, CU beckoned future economist
By Clint Talbott
As a college student in Shanghai about to graduate in 1946, Alpha C. Chiang wanted to pursue graduate studies in the United States. He says he was “not smart enough to figure out how to gather information about American colleges.” Yet, later, he proved smart enough to become a prominent U. S. economist.
How did he finally choose an American university? He says the decision was actually made for him by a giant poster on the bulletin board of St. John’s University, a missionary college where he was studying, inviting students to do graduate work at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Chiang saw this as a sign from God. Since there were no other posters, he and two good friends promptly applied to CU for admission.
Chiang arrived in Boulder in September 1947, delighted to find such a beautiful campus as his first stop in the United States, with the imposing Flatirons as its backdrop. All the people he met—faculty, fellow students, and townspeople—were kind and friendly.
After renting a room in downtown Boulder, he asked the landlady for a key. She told him, “You don’t need a key. We don’t lock our doors.” As a former resident of a crime-ridden city, Chiang was deeply impressed.
His proficiency in English and hard-working nature served him well at CU. Earning the esteem of his professors, Chiang received a graduate tuition scholarship for three academic quarters. Because of the three-quarter limit of the award, he aimed for completing the M.A. degree requirement, including a thesis, in nine months.
The thesis, which ran 138 pages, was finished only a few days before the deadline, and the fact that CU required multiple copies caused a problem. This was years before Xerox photocopiers and decades before personal computers. The typist he hired had to insert five sheets of bond paper into the typewriter, with carbon papers in between, hoping not to make any typing error, because every error had to be erased five times.
“Towards the end, it became a mad race against the deadline.”
Chiang has fond memories for his professors at CU, especially Professor Morris Garnsey, who taught Keynesian theory, then still new, and Professor Carl McGuire, who directed Chiang’s thesis, “A Postwar Export Policy for China,” with sound suggestions and warm encouragement.
For his doctoral work, Chiang transferred to Columbia University. New York City was much different from Boulder, and he soon fell victim to a loan scam, losing $5, in those days a substantial sum (a cup of coffee costing only 5 cents).
Divine intervention came to his rescue again a few months later, when he was able to catch the scoundrel who, taken aback by the confrontation, gave back a bunch of money and ran away. The money returned to Chiang turned out to be almost $9, unwittingly turning him from a “victim” to a “usurer.”
A year into his studies at Columbia, the Communist regime took over China, producing two major effects on Chiang’s plans. First, his family financing having been cut off, his doctorate would be delayed because he had to support himself.
Second, as the new regime became more and more entrenched, he had to reassess his plan to return to Shanghai, a city he loved. As it turned out, he was destined to settle in the United States after he completed his Ph.D. in 1954. His doctoral dissertation, 370 pages long, went through the same laborious typing process as his M.A. thesis, but this time his girlfriend, Emily, now his wife, volunteered to be the typist.
Chiang went into economics as a compromise. “If I had my first choice, I would be a Chinese-opera singer.” That being a low-esteem profession, Chiang’s father said, “No way.”
Neither would a career as a novelist satisfy his father, although Chiang did have some short stories published while in college. His father suggested a medical career, but Chiang “didn’t like the sight of blood.” Finally, they settled on economics as a viable alternative, with many job opportunities in a city like Shanghai, including work in banks, government offices, and import-export businesses.
While pursuing a doctoral degree, Chiang looked for job opportunities in business, but found none. He decided on an academic career, which would involve lecturing in class. English posed no problem, but public speaking did, because Chiang used to be very shy.
To overcome his shyness, he made a conscious effort to learn to tell jokes in large gatherings, gradually improving his delivery and gaining confidence. By the time he taught his first class as a part-time instructor at the University of Bridgeport, he felt sufficiently at ease in front of a class.
The problem was that, in this adult evening course, he, at age 25, had to face quite a few silver-haired students. To compensate for his youthful countenance, he tried to wear glasses, and even smoked a pipe. “I must have looked very silly to my first crop of students.”
Teaching jobs were scarce in 1954, the year he earned his Ph. D. After so many disappointing responses to his inquiries, a call for interview finally came from Denison University in Ohio, as a last-minute replacement for someone who decided not to accept their job offer.
So here was a precious offer of a full-time position as assistant professor of economics at an annual salary of $4,100. Using bargaining skills acquired in Shanghai, however, he succeeded in raising that figure, but only to $4,200.
Denison emphasized teaching over research, so Chiang spent a lot of effort to improve his class performance, eventually getting highly favorable student evaluations. The jokes he learned came in handy, and after a while, he could even improvise.
His affiliation with Denison lasted a decade, the last three years as chairman of the Economics Department. Meanwhile, he became an American citizen.
Then, in 1964, he joined the University of Connecticut as a full professor. That affiliation also involved some divine guidance, Chiang says. Most academic recruitment occurs at the assistant- or associate-professor level.
But the University of Connecticut had full-professor-level positions open as a result of some big Ford Foundation grants it just received. Moreover, Chiang serendipitously received an invitation to interview, only because a friend of his at UConn (a former colleague at Denison) incidentally heard from a book salesman that Chiang was spending the year 1963-64 at Yale University on a National Science Foundation Fellowship.
With Yale being just an hour’s drive away, this friend persuaded the Department of Economics to invite Chiang to drive over for an on-campus interview. This turned out to be the most crucial one-hour drive in Chiang’s life; it landed him a new job that lasted for more than a quarter-century.
He taught at UConn for 28 years, retiring in 1992. Before and after retirement, he held visiting professorships at New Asia College of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Cornell University, Lingnan University in Hong Kong, and Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration in Finland.
Before moving to Connecticut, Chiang had already planned to write a textbook on mathematical economics, a subject he never had an opportunity to learn as a graduate student, but felt should be an essential part of an economics curriculum. He offered a mathematical economics seminar to senior students at Denison, but the books available did not satisfy his needs. So he vowed to write a better one himself.
As soon as Chiang arrived in Connecticut, he set out immediately on this book project. For this, he had to study mathematics on his own. Since he found most mathematics books to be too terse, leaving out many steps for the students to struggle over, it became his primary objective to write a mathematical economics book that was readable, non-intimidating and with lucid exposition.
Obsessed with this project, Chiang became something of an ascetic for two years, forsaking football games, movies and all other forms of entertainment. To finish the book, he rose early and worked late, to the neglect of his health.
Chiang wrote the book on an IBM Selectric Typewriter, then the state-of-the-art writing instrument. It has interchangeable typing balls not only for different fonts, but also for mathematical symbols. Bright red in color, that typewriter in Chiang’s office was the envy of his colleagues.
The result of his two years of ascetic life was rewarding; McGraw-Hill published his first edition of his work, “Fundamental Methods of Mathematical Economics,” in 1967. It soon became widely adopted all over the world, and was translated into more than 10 languages.
Many people referred to this book as a “classic.” While the life of a successful textbook is normally 10 years or less, Chiang’s book, now in its fourth edition, has lasted for five decades.
The Chiang book’s reputation emanates mainly from its lucidity, which results partly from his special effort not to skip steps, but partly from the critical comments from his wife, Emily, who not only typed the difficult mathematical manuscript, but also requested rewrites whenever she spotted any ambiguous sentences or statements. Chiang rewrote many sections till she was satisfied.
Keith Maskus, a professor of economics and an associate dean of CU’s College of Arts and Sciences, began using Chiang’s book in his courses after joining the CU faculty. Before becoming an associate dean, Maskus did not know that Chiang was a CU alumnus and regular donor.
Recently, Maskus visited Chiang in White Plains, and brought his copy of the Chiang book for him to autograph.
Chiang received Ford Foundation and National Science Foundation fellowships. In 1963-64, he held the presidency of the Ohio Association of Economists and Political Scientists. His name appears in “Who’s Who in Economics: A Biographical Dictionary of Major Economists 1900-1994.”
As Chiang puts it, “I probably did OK. I hope CU considers me to be a worthy alumnus.”
As a college student in Shanghai about to graduate in 1946, Alpha C. Chiang wanted to pursue graduate studies in the United States. He says he was “not smart enough to figure out how to gather information about American colleges.” Yet, later, he proved smart enough to become a prominent U. S. economist.
How did he finally choose an American university? He says the decision was actually made for him by a giant poster on the bulletin board of St. John’s University, a missionary college where he was studying, inviting students to do graduate work at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Chiang saw this as a sign from God. Since there were no other posters, he and two good friends promptly applied to CU for admission.
Chiang arrived in Boulder in September 1947, delighted to find such a beautiful campus as his first stop in the United States, with the imposing Flatirons as its backdrop. All the people he met—faculty, fellow students, and townspeople—were kind and friendly.
After renting a room in downtown Boulder, he asked the landlady for a key. She told him, “You don’t need a key. We don’t lock our doors.” As a former resident of a crime-ridden city, Chiang was deeply impressed.
His proficiency in English and hard-working nature served him well at CU. Earning the esteem of his professors, Chiang received a graduate tuition scholarship for three academic quarters. Because of the three-quarter limit of the award, he aimed for completing the M.A. degree requirement, including a thesis, in nine months.
The thesis, which ran 138 pages, was finished only a few days before the deadline, and the fact that CU required multiple copies caused a problem. This was years before Xerox photocopiers and decades before personal computers. The typist he hired had to insert five sheets of bond paper into the typewriter, with carbon papers in between, hoping not to make any typing error, because every error had to be erased five times.
“Towards the end, it became a mad race against the deadline.”
Chiang has fond memories for his professors at CU, especially Professor Morris Garnsey, who taught Keynesian theory, then still new, and Professor Carl McGuire, who directed Chiang’s thesis, “A Postwar Export Policy for China,” with sound suggestions and warm encouragement.
From one CU to another
For his doctoral work, Chiang transferred to Columbia University. New York City was much different from Boulder, and he soon fell victim to a loan scam, losing $5, in those days a substantial sum (a cup of coffee costing only 5 cents).
Divine intervention came to his rescue again a few months later, when he was able to catch the scoundrel who, taken aback by the confrontation, gave back a bunch of money and ran away. The money returned to Chiang turned out to be almost $9, unwittingly turning him from a “victim” to a “usurer.”
Alpha Chiang and his wife, Emily, celebrate a recent anniversary.
A year into his studies at Columbia, the Communist regime took over China, producing two major effects on Chiang’s plans. First, his family financing having been cut off, his doctorate would be delayed because he had to support himself.
Second, as the new regime became more and more entrenched, he had to reassess his plan to return to Shanghai, a city he loved. As it turned out, he was destined to settle in the United States after he completed his Ph.D. in 1954. His doctoral dissertation, 370 pages long, went through the same laborious typing process as his M.A. thesis, but this time his girlfriend, Emily, now his wife, volunteered to be the typist.
An academic career
Chiang went into economics as a compromise. “If I had my first choice, I would be a Chinese-opera singer.” That being a low-esteem profession, Chiang’s father said, “No way.”
Neither would a career as a novelist satisfy his father, although Chiang did have some short stories published while in college. His father suggested a medical career, but Chiang “didn’t like the sight of blood.” Finally, they settled on economics as a viable alternative, with many job opportunities in a city like Shanghai, including work in banks, government offices, and import-export businesses.
While pursuing a doctoral degree, Chiang looked for job opportunities in business, but found none. He decided on an academic career, which would involve lecturing in class. English posed no problem, but public speaking did, because Chiang used to be very shy.
To overcome his shyness, he made a conscious effort to learn to tell jokes in large gatherings, gradually improving his delivery and gaining confidence. By the time he taught his first class as a part-time instructor at the University of Bridgeport, he felt sufficiently at ease in front of a class.
The problem was that, in this adult evening course, he, at age 25, had to face quite a few silver-haired students. To compensate for his youthful countenance, he tried to wear glasses, and even smoked a pipe. “I must have looked very silly to my first crop of students.”
Teaching jobs were scarce in 1954, the year he earned his Ph. D. After so many disappointing responses to his inquiries, a call for interview finally came from Denison University in Ohio, as a last-minute replacement for someone who decided not to accept their job offer.
So here was a precious offer of a full-time position as assistant professor of economics at an annual salary of $4,100. Using bargaining skills acquired in Shanghai, however, he succeeded in raising that figure, but only to $4,200.
Denison emphasized teaching over research, so Chiang spent a lot of effort to improve his class performance, eventually getting highly favorable student evaluations. The jokes he learned came in handy, and after a while, he could even improvise.
His affiliation with Denison lasted a decade, the last three years as chairman of the Economics Department. Meanwhile, he became an American citizen.
Then, in 1964, he joined the University of Connecticut as a full professor. That affiliation also involved some divine guidance, Chiang says. Most academic recruitment occurs at the assistant- or associate-professor level.
But the University of Connecticut had full-professor-level positions open as a result of some big Ford Foundation grants it just received. Moreover, Chiang serendipitously received an invitation to interview, only because a friend of his at UConn (a former colleague at Denison) incidentally heard from a book salesman that Chiang was spending the year 1963-64 at Yale University on a National Science Foundation Fellowship.
With Yale being just an hour’s drive away, this friend persuaded the Department of Economics to invite Chiang to drive over for an on-campus interview. This turned out to be the most crucial one-hour drive in Chiang’s life; it landed him a new job that lasted for more than a quarter-century.
He taught at UConn for 28 years, retiring in 1992. Before and after retirement, he held visiting professorships at New Asia College of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Cornell University, Lingnan University in Hong Kong, and Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration in Finland.
Writing a ‘classic’ textbook
Before moving to Connecticut, Chiang had already planned to write a textbook on mathematical economics, a subject he never had an opportunity to learn as a graduate student, but felt should be an essential part of an economics curriculum. He offered a mathematical economics seminar to senior students at Denison, but the books available did not satisfy his needs. So he vowed to write a better one himself.
As soon as Chiang arrived in Connecticut, he set out immediately on this book project. For this, he had to study mathematics on his own. Since he found most mathematics books to be too terse, leaving out many steps for the students to struggle over, it became his primary objective to write a mathematical economics book that was readable, non-intimidating and with lucid exposition.
Obsessed with this project, Chiang became something of an ascetic for two years, forsaking football games, movies and all other forms of entertainment. To finish the book, he rose early and worked late, to the neglect of his health.
Chiang wrote the book on an IBM Selectric Typewriter, then the state-of-the-art writing instrument. It has interchangeable typing balls not only for different fonts, but also for mathematical symbols. Bright red in color, that typewriter in Chiang’s office was the envy of his colleagues.
The result of his two years of ascetic life was rewarding; McGraw-Hill published his first edition of his work, “Fundamental Methods of Mathematical Economics,” in 1967. It soon became widely adopted all over the world, and was translated into more than 10 languages.
Many people referred to this book as a “classic.” While the life of a successful textbook is normally 10 years or less, Chiang’s book, now in its fourth edition, has lasted for five decades.
The Chiang book’s reputation emanates mainly from its lucidity, which results partly from his special effort not to skip steps, but partly from the critical comments from his wife, Emily, who not only typed the difficult mathematical manuscript, but also requested rewrites whenever she spotted any ambiguous sentences or statements. Chiang rewrote many sections till she was satisfied.
Keith Maskus, a professor of economics and an associate dean of CU’s College of Arts and Sciences, began using Chiang’s book in his courses after joining the CU faculty. Before becoming an associate dean, Maskus did not know that Chiang was a CU alumnus and regular donor.
Recently, Maskus visited Chiang in White Plains, and brought his copy of the Chiang book for him to autograph.
Chiang received Ford Foundation and National Science Foundation fellowships. In 1963-64, he held the presidency of the Ohio Association of Economists and Political Scientists. His name appears in “Who’s Who in Economics: A Biographical Dictionary of Major Economists 1900-1994.”
As Chiang puts it, “I probably did OK. I hope CU considers me to be a worthy alumnus.”