Frederic M. Scherer passed away on May 25, 2025. Economics in general, and industrial economists in particular, lost one of their most influential colleagues. His family lost a loving husband, father, and grandfather, as well as a great friend of culture and classical music, who himself played the piano with great skill.
Mike Scherer, a self-proclaimed Schumpeterian, assumed the office of President of the International J.A. Schumpeter Society in 1988 at the Schumpeter Conference held that same year in Siena, Italy. He succeeded founding President Wolfgang Stolper (Ann Arbor) and his successor, Arnold Heertje (Amsterdam). He brought the Society’s World Congress to the USA for the first time, to Airlie House, Virginia, at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the early summer of 1990. A wonderfully organized conference with high-calibre lectures and discussions with Schumpeterians from around the world led, among other things, to a sharp increase in the number of American members in the Society. Schumpeter was back to the US again – thanks to Mike. In the years to follow, Mike has always been a critically-friendly follower of the Schumpeterian enterprise that attempt to host the Neo-Schumpeterians and Evolutionary Economists as well as the innovation-affine industrial organisation colleagues, so often showing a US affiliation. The conference proceedings “Entrepreneurship, technological innovation, and economic growth: studies in the Schumpeterian tradition” (with University of Michigan Press), by Mike together with Mark Perlman as editors are a still good read today.
Mike Scherer was tremendously productive: author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books and 200 articles and case studies. His academic work focused on industrial organization and the role of technological innovation in economic growth. Industrial Market Structure and Economic Performance, first published in 1970, became the standard textbook in this field. This fits in well with his talent as a teacher and mentor, which also includes his wit, self-irony and keen sense of humour. Always to remind is his artistic, close to yoga, way to explain physically what an elasticity is and how it works. If you got that, you never forgot.
Mike Scherer, born in 1932, graduated from Marquette High School in 1950 and from the University of Michigan in 1954. He earned an MBA (1958) and later a PhD (1962) in business administration from Harvard. From 1974 to 1976, he served as Chief Economist at the Federal Trade Commission, leading efforts to implement the Commission’s business sector reporting program. He has held academic posts in Harvard Business School (1958-1963), Princeton University (1963-1966), the University of Michigan (1966-1972), the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) in Berlin (1972-1974), Northwestern University (1976-1982), Swarthmore College (1982-1989), the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (1989-2000) and the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University (2000-2005). In 1996 he received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Hohenheim in German. Since 2006, Mike had been Professor Emeritus of Public Policy and Governance at the Aetna Chair of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Next to the presidency of the International Joseph A. Schumpeter Society he served as the 3rd president of the Industrial Organization Society vice president of the American Economic Association and of the Southern Economic Association. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Antitrust Institute in 2002.
In Mike Scherer, the International J.A. Schumpeter Society has lost one of its earliest protagonists, a critical friend and a tireless advocate and developer of Schumpeterian thought. We deeply mourn his loss and our thoughts are with his wife Barbara Silbermann Scherer, his children and grandchildren.
Strasbourg and Jena, May/June, 2025
Patrick Llerena (President ISS) Uwe Cantner (Secretary General ISS)