UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #687
CAIN, GLEN G.

CAIN, Glen G. (1933- )
Professor of Economics
At UW: 1963-1995

Interviewed: 2004	
Interviewer: W. Lee Hansen
Length: 46 minutes

Early years; Educational background; Dissertation; Industrial Relations Research Institute; Tenure-granting authority; Relationship between IRRI and  economics department.

Interview Session (September 17, 2004): Digital File

00:00:30	Glen Cain relates his early years in Gary, Indiana, and talks about his parents' involvement in trade unions.  He attended Lake Forest College and then the University of California-Berkeley to study labor economics and work in the Institute for Industrial Relations.   

00:03:24	He pursued his PhD in economics at the University of Chicago; he wrote his dissertation on the participation of married women in the labor force.

00:06:38	GC talks about his acquaintance with Senior Labor Economist Gerald Somers of the Industrial Relations Research Institute (IRRI).

00:08:30	He describes the IRRI in the 1960s and 1970s; he thinks there was a close integration between the IRRI and the economics department.  From the late 1960s, he witnessed a sharp decline in the IRRI as it moved away from economics and towards business administration.

00:13:45	GC personally drifted away from the IRRI as he became more interested in conducting research at the Institute for Research on Poverty.

00:14:30		He cites the decline of unions as a major factor in the declining importance of industrial relations within the field of economics.  He also thinks a shifting emphasis on research (towards human resources and organizational theory) widened the gap between industrial relations and economics.

00:18:37	GC addresses the IRRI's attempts to achieve tenure-granting authority, which both he and Chancellor Edwin Young opposed.

00:25:38	He assesses Gerald Somers' impact on the IRRI.

00:27:52	GC thinks the decline of industrial relations programs is inevitable because of their adherence to traditional research methods.

00:32:05	Glen Cain argues that economic history was a fundamental part of the Industrial Relations Research Institute; but the IRRI's emphasis on institutional economics diverged from research interests in the field of economics as a whole.  GC and Lee Hansen go on to discuss the relevance of economics research to industrial relations topics.

00:43:31	GC talks about the fortunes of industrial relations programs across the country.

00:46:03	End of interview.

END