University of Wisconsin Faculty Document 1460

Madison 1 November 1999

MEMORIAL RESOLUTION OF THE FACULTY OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

ON THE DEATH OF PROFESSOR EMERITUS KENNETH H. PARSONS

Kenneth H. Parsons died October 21, 1998 at 95 years of age. He was a member of the faculty of the
Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Wisconsin - Madison from 1937 until his
retirement in 1974; he was a member of the Land Tenure Center faculty from its start in 1962. He was
honored by being named a Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association in 1973, and was
given the Veblen-Commons Award in 1985 by the Association for Evolutionary Economics.

Parsons scholastic life spanned the full history of the Department of Agricultural Economics at Wisconsin.
As a student, he studied with the individuals who founded the department in the early part of the century.
As an emeritus professor he was known to all of us as he continued to participate in the department until the
last years of his life, including launching the Kenneth Parsons Lecture Series in Institutional Economics
in 1985 with a subsequently published talk.

As a scholar, Parsons was best known for his work on institutional economics, family farming, international
agricultural development, land tenure and agrarian reform. During his long career in Wisconsin, Parsons was
also known as a dedicated teacher who approached economics from a broad social science perspective. He
had a profound influence on many students from many different countries. His students came to hold
important positions in international agencies, governments and universities.

Early in his professional career he distinguished himself by his original and innovative research on family
farms and the family life cycle. Major contributions from this research appeared in two Wisconsin
Agricultural Experiment Stations Research Bulletins co-authored with his students: Keeping the Farm in the
Family (1945) and How Family Labor Affects Wisconsin Farming (1950).

Parsons' insights and methods grew from an intellectual base that included economics, agriculture,
philosophy, social psychology and law. As a UW-Madison student in 1929, Parsons was attracted by the
ideas of institutional economist John R. Commons. At Commons request, Parsons contributed to and helped
Commons complete his last book, The Economics of Collective Action, published in 1950. During his career,
Parsons continued to interpret and extend Commons' ideas and to apply them in his own work. Another
important influence on his work derived from the philosophy of John Dewey.

Parsons was one of the first U.S. agricultural economists with a professional concern and commitment to the
study of economic development. His activities in this area began with his service as chief economist of the
Agricultural Section of the Marshall Plan in 1949-50. Shortly after that assignment his major activities
became concerned with the development of agriculture in the Third World, particularly with issues of
institutional change, including land tenure and land reform.

Parsons was instrumental in convening the first World Land Tenure Conference at the UW-Madison in 1951
and was its program chairman. Funded by the U.S. government, this conference and the proceedings issue
it produced (Land Tenure and Related Problems in World Agriculture, 1956) proved to be a major starting
point and a source of information and ideas for subsequent activities of international agencies and national
governments in the field of land tenure.

Parsons served in various capacities (as researcher, consultant, conference participant and lecturer) with a
number of national and international organizations. These included the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization, U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America, U.S. Agency for International Development,
and the Ford Foundation. These activities took Parsons to Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, India and
Latin America.
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Shortly before his retirement, Parsons served as head of the Department of Agricultural Economics in the
University of Ife in Nigeria in 1968-72 under a University of Wisconsin contract.

Born in Kokomo, Indiana on July 20, 1903, Parsons grew up and worked on his family farm. He received
a B.A. in economics from Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1928 and a Ph.D. in agricultural
economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1940. Before completing his graduate studies he worked in
Washington with the Federal Farm Board, the Farm Credit Administration and the U.S. Department of
Agriculture.

Parsons is survived by two daughters, Priscilla Soucek of Princeton, N.J. and Patricia Kay of Bethesda, Md.
His wife, Pauline Livingston, died in 1987.

MEMORIAL COMMITTEE

Michael Carter, Chair

Peter Dorner

Don Kalne

UW-Madison Fac Doc 1460 - 1 November 1999