At the time of his death in 2006, Professor William T. Baxter CA, was Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the London School of Economics (LSE). He had joined the LSE just after the end of the Second World War following periods spent as a student in the USA (at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard), as a part-time Lecturer at Edinburgh University, and as Professor at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
While in Edinburgh in the 1930s, Baxter met Kenneth E. Boulding (1910-1993), economist, philosopher, poet and Nobel-nominee. Born in Liverpool, England in 1910, and an Oxford garduate, Boulding had held fellowships at Harvard and Chicago, and after a short spell of teaching at Edinburgh University went to the USA for good and finally settled at the University of Colorado. Boulding's first book Economic analysis was an introductory text book which 'blended Keynesian and neoclassical economic theory into a coherent synthesis'. He believed that 'depressions are due to too little private spending and that governments should run deficits to end them'. Baxter is lauded for his theory of deprival value and its use in nationalised and private utilities in the UK, and for his contribution to the accounting standards debate.
Professor William T. Baxter died in 2006 at the age of 99-years, and just short of his 100th birthday. Professor Kenneth E. Boulding died in 1993.
From the guide to the Papers of Professor William T. Baxter (1906-2006) relating to Kenneth E. Boulding (1910-1993), 1963-1993, (Edinburgh University Library)
