WALKER, FRANCIS A(MASA)

born July 2, 1840, Boston died Jan. 5, 1897, Boston U.S. economist and statistician who led in modernizing and broadening the character and scope of economics. Educated at Amherst College, Massachusetts, Walker enlisted in the Union Army in 1861 and was discharged with the rank of brevet brigadier general. In 1869, after teaching for a brief period, he was appointed head of the bureau of statistics in the Treasury Department, where he greatly improved the use of statistical techniques. He served as superintendent of the 1870 and 1880 censuses and expanded the coverage of the census so that it would more accurately reflect the nation's development. He was commissioner of Indian affairs in 1871, professor of political economy at Yale University (1873-81), and president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1881 until his death. He was also president of the American Statistical Association (1883-97) and of the American Economic Association (1885-92). Walker had a decisive influence in discrediting the generally accepted wages-fund doctrine, which held that the total wage bill was predetermined by the capital set aside for labour. He proposed in its stead his own "residual claimant theory" of wages, according to which wages were paid after the deduction of the other three shares (profits, interest, and rent) of total industrial output. Walker's books included The Wages Question (1876), Money (1878), and Political Economy (1883). He also did studies on immigration, which were, however, criticized for their lack of evidence.