Robert Hessen
economic historian
Robert Hessen (September 1936 – April 15, 2024) was an American economic and business historian. He was a professor at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and a senior research fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution. He was an Objectivist and authored several books, analyzing business and economic issues from an Objectivist perspective.
Early life and education
Robert Hessen was born in New York City. He received his Bachelor of Arts from Queens College, his Master of Arts from Harvard University, and then his Doctor of Philosophy from Columbia University.
Career
Prior to joining the Hoover Institution and taking his position at Stanford, he taught at the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University.
He was associated with philosopher Ayn Rand for 25 years, contributed articles to two of her periodicals, as well as her book, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. He was a featured commentator on Milton Friedman's award-winning PBS television documentary series, Free to Choose.
In 1985, Hessen joined the Board of Advisors of the newly formed Ayn Rand Institute. In 2000, he joined the Board of Advisors of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies.
The public source identifies “Robert Hessen” as economic historian. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Robert, Hessen and economic.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7345479. VIAF identifies the subject as 269863172. The Library of Congress control number is n79029191. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1936, 2024, 1985 and 2000.
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This entry incorporates text from “Robert Hessen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.