Wolf, Charles, Jr., 1924-2016

Charles Wolf Jr. (August 1, 1924 – October 24, 2016) was a senior economic advisor at the RAND Corporation (June 23, 1955 – October 24, 2016). He was also a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and was on the advisory board of the Center for International Business and Economic Research at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. He was a board member of Capital Income Builder and of Capital World Growth and Income, Inc., and a member of the American Economic Association, the Econometric Society, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. He is noted for predicting the economic collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1980s, for downplaying fears that Japan would overtake the United States, and for unsuccessfully demanding the resignation of Daniel Ellsberg two years before Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers. Wolf’s research focused on how economic forces shape the international political environment and how economic instruments can advance U.S. and Western interests. This way of thinking has been a complement to the political and military analyses that typically dominate these discussions. His research also contributed to the respective competencies of market forces and governments.