Paul A. Baran (1909-1964) was Professor of Economics at Stanford University. Born in the Ukraine, he was educated in Germany and the Soviet Union, and moved to the United States on the eve of the Second World War. After wartime military service, he joined the staff of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, leaving to become a member of the Stanford economics faculty in 1949. He was a frequent contributor to Monthly Review, co-author (with Paul M. Sweezy) of Monopoly Capital, and author of The Political Economy of Growth and The Longer View.