Robert F. Lanzillotti Papers

Robert F. Lanzillotti (1921-) served as Dean for the University of Florida College of Business Administration from 1969 through 1986. During his tenure, Dean Lanzillotti brought the College into regional and national prominence by standardizing the program's structure and curriculum, recruiting nationally renowned faculty, and bringing more than $3.5 million in private donations and $2 million in state matching funds to the College. Under his direction, the College of Business Administration established six Eminent Scholar chairs, the most acquired by any college at the time, and brought the number of research centers within the college to twelve.

Born to Italian immigrant parents, Lanzillotti was raised in Washington D.C.; the sixth of seven children. After graduating high school in 1940, Lanzillotti attended American University. In 1941, he joined the Navy, but was allowed to defer deployment to complete his B.A. in economics at Dartmouth in 1943. Serving as a midshipman, Lanzillotti served in both the European and Pacific Theaters and earned two bronze stars and the rank of Lieutenant Commander before being discharged in 1945. After leaving the Navy, he returned to American University to complete his M.A. in Economics before leaving for UC-Berkley where he earned his PhD.

Hired by Washington State University in 1949, Lanzillotti stayed with the University for twelve years and published a groundbreaking study based on his research with the Brookings Institute about corporate product pricing methods. Fifteen years later the research would recommend him as an expert voice for Richard Nixon's Price Commission from 1971 to 1973. In 1961, Lanzillotti took the position as Chair of the Economics Department at Michigan State University where he gained the reputation as an administrator who could raise the profile, status, and recruiting power of a department under his direction. In 1969 he was offered the position of Dean for the School of Business at the University of Florida and stayed with the school for seventeen years until his retirement in 1986. Under his direction the UF School of Business established dynamic ties with local business, as well as regional and national government, significantly increased its research standing, and was ranked one of the top 25 business schools in the nation.

Price Commission Early in 1970, the United States was experiencing an economic downturn characterized by a 6% unemployment rate and an inflation rate of 5%. Interest rates were rising rapidly and labor strikes were becoming a regular issue for the Nixon Administration. Concurrently, the Democratic controlled Congress passed the Economic Stabilization Act in August of 1970 authorizing the President to control wages and prices. Few expected the President to use authority given Nixon's political aversion to implementing government controls over private business and labor. On August 15, 1971, however, Nixon announced what he called his New Economic Plan. His goals were to control unemployment, inflation, and international speculation against the dollar. In an attempt to remedy the economic "stagflation," the first phase of his plan initiated a 90-day freeze on all wages, prices, and rents.

The second phase, in effect from November 14, 1971 until January 11, 1973, began an effort to create a more malleable program of economic checks and regulations that would provide long term stability to the economy as the freeze was lifted. Under this phase, the Price Commission (among other committees) was created to implement profit margin limitations on price increases by businesses. Businesses were only allowed to increase their prices if costs were increasing. A universal cap on price increases was implemented, however, so if a company's costs exceeded the cap, they could not increase their prices beyond the set limit to recuperate their losses.

In early 1973, Nixon dissolved the Price Commission and similar boards citing an improving economy that additional controls would only stifle. The Commission, however, had difficulty throughout its existence in implementing and enforcing policy because of the large work load for part time staff, the conflicts encountered between their initiatives and the initiatives of other commissions, and the somewhat unmanageable nature of attempting to make decisions on a case by case basis for a complex set of interrelated private and public, and domestic and international economic concerns.