Harold Demsetz

Harold Demsetz was the Arthur Andersen UCLA Alumni Emeritus Professor of Business Economics at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). He died Jan. 4, 2019, aged 88.

Demsetz taught at the University of Michigan (1958–60), UCLA, 1960–63, and the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago, 1963–71. In 1971, he returned permanently to UCLA’s Economics Department, which he chaired 1978–80. He held the Arthur Andersen UCLA Alumni Chair in Business Economics, 1986–95.

Demsetz was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a director of the Mont Pelerin Society, and a past (1996) president of the Western Economics Association. He was awarded a B.A. (1953) in economics from the University of Illinois, and an MBA (1954) and a Ph.D. (1959) from Northwestern University.