What’s Governance Got to Do with It?

Abstract

Just over a century ago, there was an outspoken economics professor named Edward Ross. Ross had some very particular views on the western railroads’ use of Chinese immigrant labor and did not hesitate to make them known. As it happened, his employer was none other than Stanford University, which was founded in 1885 by the railroad magnate Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane. Mr. Stanford thought nothing about Ross’s opinions, for he had passed away before Ross arrived in Palo Alto. But his wife, then the university’s sole trustee, took exception to Ross’s views and insisted that he be relieved of his professorship.