W. Allen Wallis

Wilson Allen Wallis (November 5, 1912 – October 12, 1998) was an American economist and statistician best known for serving as president of the University of Rochester. The Kruskal–Wallis one-way analysis of variance is named after him and William Kruskal.

Born in Philadelphia, he attended the University of Minnesota, Class of 1932, where he was a member of the Chi Phi Fraternity. After a year of graduate work at the University of Minnesota, he began studies at the University of Chicago in 1933, where he began what would prove to be lifelong friendships with Milton Friedman and George Stigler.

In 1936–37, he served as an economist and statistician for the National Resources Committee. During World War II, Wallis was the director of research of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development's Statistical Research Group (1942–46); he recruited a team of bright young economists, including Milton Friedman, to the Statistical Research Group.

Wallis served as dean of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business from 1956 to 1962. During his time as dean he established the "Chicago Approach to Business Education," which involved the application of statistical methodology to business.

He became president of the University of Rochester in 1962, a position he held until 1970, when he became the University of Rochester's chancellor and chief executive. In 1975, he relinquished the job of chief executive, but remained chancellor of the university until his retirement in 1982.

In addition to his role as an academic and academic administrator, Wallis served as an advisor to U.S. presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan. Under Eisenhower, he collaborated with Vice President Nixon on the report of the Cabinet Committee on Price Stability for Economic Growth (1959–61). Under Nixon and Ford, he served on the President's Commission on Federal Statistics and on the Advisory Council on Social Security. Nixon also appointed Wallis as chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a post he held 1975–78. Under Reagan, he served as Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (1982–85), and then, after Congress changed the job description and title, as Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs (1985–89).

In December 1992, the University of Rochester named a joint program of its Departments of Economics and Political Science in honor of Wallis: the W. Allen Wallis Institute of Political Economy at the University of Rochester. He died in 1998 in Rochester, New York.

Selected works

• Wallis, W. Allen; Moore, Geoffrey H. (1941), A Significance Test for Time Series and Other Ordered Observations., New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, OCLC 1876032 
• Wallis, W. Allen; Churchill Eisenhart, Millard W Hastay (1947), Selected Techniques of Statistical Analysis for Scientific and Industrial Research and Production and Management Engineering, New York: McGraw-Hill, OCLC 490341075 
• Wallis, W. Allen; Harry V. Roberts (1956), Statistics, a New Approach, Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, OCLC 839651, http://www.archive.org/details/StatisticsANewApproach, retrieved 2009-12-30 
• Wallis, W. Allen; James Tobin (1968), Welfare Programs: An Economic Appraisal, Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, OCLC 21672 
• Wallis, W. Allen (1969), Abolish the Draft, Washington, D.C.: National Council to Repeal the Draft, OCLC 45712869 
• Wallis, W. Allen (1976), An Overgoverned Society, New York: Free Press, ISBN 9780029337103, OCLC 2352513 

See also

• Kruskal–Wallis one-way analysis of variance by ranks

External links

• W. Allen Wallis Institute of Political Economy website
• Records of W. Allen Wallis, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library

Academic offices
Preceded by John E. Jeuck	Dean of the University of Chicago School of Business 1956–1962	Succeeded by George P. Shultz
Preceded by Cornelis W. de Kiewiet	President of the University of Rochester 1962–1970	Succeeded by Robert L. Sproull
Vacant	Chancellor of the University of Rochester 1970–1982	Vacant
Non-profit organization positions
Preceded by Albert H. Bowker	President of the American Statistical Association 1965	Succeeded by Frederick F. Stephan
Preceded by Robert S. Benjamin	Chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting 1975–1978	Succeeded by
Government offices
Preceded by Myer Rashish	Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs September 23, 1982 – August 15, 1985	Office renamed
New office	Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs August 16, 1985 – January 20, 1989	Succeeded by Richard T. McCormack