Edward S. Herman

Edward S. Herman was an economist and media analyst with a specialty in corporate and regulatory issues as well as political economy and the media. He was Professor Emeritus of Finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He also taught at Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Pennsylvania in 1945 and Ph.D. in 1953 from the University of California, Berkeley.

Herman was born in Philadelphia to a liberal Democratic family, the son of Abraham Lincoln Herman, a pharmacist, and Celia Dektor, a homemaker. Herman received his Bachelor of Arts (in 1945) and later his MA from the University of Pennsylvania. At the University of California Berkeley, from which he received his Ph.D. in 1953, he met economist Robert A. Brady who had studied the economics of fascist regimes and was a significant influence upon him. Herman joined the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania in 1958, where he taught finance and became professor emeritus in 1989.