Perlman, Mark, 1923-2006

• 1923: Born in Madison, Wisconsin
• 1947: BA and MA, University of Wisconsin
• 1950: Ph.D., Columbia University
• 1951 - 1952 : Assistant Professor, University of Hawaii
• 1952 - 1955 : Assistant Professor, Cornell University
• 1953 - 1955 : Editorial Board, Industrial and Labor Relations Review
• 1955 - 1964 : Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Visiting Professor, Johns Hopkins University
• 1969 - 1981 : Founder and editor of the Journal of Economic Literature
• 1976 - 1977 : Visiting Fellow, Claire College, Cambridge
• 1981 - 1982 : Fellow, Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton University
• 1982: Professor, Oesterreichische Laenderbank, Schumpeter University, Vienna

In his dissertation, Judges in Industry, Mark Perlman applied his interest in the development of American industrial government (and particularly in approaches to collective decision-making in industry) to the Australian Arbitration Court. This study concerned the role of employer and union organization as well as the cost and price structure of particular industries in getting the losing party to accept its awards. It was used in 1954 in the Boilermakers Case as the basis for finding the 50-year-old arbitration system unconstitutional. His next book, Labor Union Theories in America: Background and Development, and other early work dealt with the history, practices and theories of American labor unionism.

While at Johns Hopkins, Perlman became interested in the economics of public health with an emphasis on preventive health care. In 1963 he began his collaboration with Edgar M. Hoover on Spatial, Regional, and Population Economics: Essays in Honor of Edgar M. Hoover, a work concerned with demographic economics, and particularly with the lag in the profession's consciousness between the demographic empirical changes and the modification of theoretical models.

In 1969, Perlman founded the Journal of Economic Literature. He remained its managing editor for 12 years, commissioning subfield survey articles and developing a classification system for articles in economics.

From the guide to the Mark Perlman Papers, 1952-2002, (Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library)