Bach, George Leland

Biographical/Historical Sketch

George Leland Bach earned his doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago in 1940. He worked as a research economist for the Federal Reserve Board during World War II. After the war, Bach became the founding dean of the Graduate School of Industrial Adminstration at Carnegie-Mellon University. In 1959, Bach became the chairman of the Ford Foundation's National Task Force and the Committee for Economic Development (CED). Two years later, CED recommended the introduction of basic courses in economic theory at the high school level. In 1962, Bach accepted a visiting scholar position at Stanford University, and received a full appointment to the Graduate School of Business in 1966. At Stanford, Bach was an advocate of rigorous standards for MBA candidates. As a member of the Faculty Senate at Stanford, he sat on the hearing board in the 1971 Franklin dismissal case. The author of several books and articles on inflation, monetary policy and basic economic theory, Bach also worked for a variety of organizations and corporations, and frequently gave testimony before Congress on economic policy.