The Lehrman Institute was established as a non-profit private operating foundation in 1972 to encourage an interdisciplinary approach to the study of public policy. It originally sponsored individual research and group studies that stressed the historical origins and long-term implications of contemporary economic, social and Foreign Policy; including European, Asian and Western Hemisphere studies, as well as examinations of defense policy. For two decades, it conducted seminars and conferences organized around selected discussion topics to bring together members of the academic and business communities, journalists and public servants. Its Research and Visiting Fellows included a wide variety of writers and researchers including political scientist Fouad Ajami, Robert Tucker, David Calleo, and Irving Kristol.

The Institute has promoted a wide range of research on issues as diverse as the Soviet political elite, immigration, development in Latin America, welfare problems in New York City, the inequality among nations, General Charles de Gaulle, and the reconstruction of European institutions after World War II. Much of this research later appeared in well-received books, including some - Balance of Power or Hegemony: The Interwar Monetary System, edited by Benjamin M. Rowland, and Money and the Coming World Order, edited by David P. Calleo - published by the Institute itself.

Balance of Power or Hegemony: The Interwar Monetary System
”The six authors of the Lehrman Institute volume focus sharply on the theme of
hegemony or pluralism as a condition for monetary order.”
Reviewed by William Diebold, Jr., Foreign Affairs, October 1976

Money and the Coming World Order
”Stalemate-but tolerable and lasting? A system that needs an unfindable leader? Incipient blocs? Fixed rates with national discipline and no official reserve currencies?These four views-and some variants-are effectively argued in these papers by Harold van B. Cleveland, Charles P. Kindleberger, the editor, and Lewis E. Lehrman.”
Reviewed by William Diebold, Jr., Foreign Affairs, July 1976

In addition to seminars organized around the work of visiting and research fellows, The Lehrman Institute managed a series of seminars on foreign policy, economic issues, and New York City. The Institute also organized House Seminars on significant policy issues of national and international concern. It sponsored many special meetings with speakers such as Yehuda Blum, The Dalai Lama, Paul A. Volcker, and Richard V. Allen. Meetings were conducted in The Institute's town house in New York City. For several years, the Institute co-sponsored the Empire State Survey, directed by Richard Behn and Douglas Muzzio.

Among the publications of The Lehrman Institute was the five-volume Oeuvres Complètes de Jacques Rueff, one of France's great economists of the 20th century - edited by Emil-Maria Claasen and Georges Lane (published by Plon). In 1979, the Trustees of The Lehrman Institute and the Association Jacques Rueff jointed established a Jacques Rueff Memorial Prize in honor of the late French economist and statesman. The Rueff Prize was first presented in November 1979 to journalist Paul Fabra, the noted French journalist who wrote extensively on economic and financial subjects for Le Monde. His works included L'Anticapitalisme: Essai de Réhabilitation de l'économie politiquue, a study of the writings of David Ricardo.

Columbia Professor Robert Mundell was presented with the Second Jacques Rueff Prize at the Palais de Luxembourg on October 20, 1983 19 years before Mundell was awarded the Nobel Prize. In making the presentation to Mundell, Institute Chairman Lewis Lehrman noted that "He has called for a restoration of the gold standard in order to save the Western world from the twin catastrophes of deflation and inflation."

On January 20, 1987, Mr. Lehrman presented the third Rueff Prize to Edouard Balladur, the French Finance Minister in a ceremony presided over by Prime Minister Jacques Chirac in Paris. In his remarks, Mr. Lehrman said Balladur is "especially attractive as a recipient of this prize: for it was Jacques Rueff's oft expressed wish that the all important problems of political economy should not remain the arcane preserve of a few academics; but should be the domain of innovative financial craftsmen."

In the late 1990s, the Institute became a private foundation, emphasizing research and programs on education and history. To learn more about the Lehrman Award, click here.

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