Edward C. Harwood

Who was Edward C. Harwood?

Edward C. Harwood was a 20th-century economist, philosopher of science, and investment advisor who is most known for founding the nonprofit American Institute for Economic Research in 1933, which entity survives today in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. AIER is a scientific research organization specialized in economics. It is one of the oldest nonprofit research organizations in the U.S. It is the parent of a for-profit subsidiary, American Investment Services, Inc.

Harwood also established the Behavioral Research Council in the early 1950s with two sociologists, George A. Lundberg and Stuart C. Dodd, both professors at the University of Washington. BRC was taken over by AIER in 1984, but some of its work continues tangentially at another nonprofit entity Harwood created called the Progress Foundation, now based in Zurich, Switzerland. More specifically, today PF concerns itself with "conducting and disseminating independent research that fosters greater understanding of the factors that contribute to human progress".