JEREMIAH WHIPPLE JENKS (1856-), American economist, was born in St Clair, Michigan, on the 2nd of September 1856. He graduated at the university of Michigan in 1878; taught Greek, Latin and German in Mt. Morris College, Illinois; studied in Germany, receiving the degree of Ph.D. from the university of Halle in 1885; taught political science and English literature at Knox College, Galesburg, Ill., in 1886-1889; was professor of political economy and social science at Indiana State University in 1889-1891; and was successively professor of political, municipal and social institutions (1891-1892), professor of political economy and civil and social institutions (1892-1901), and after 1901 professor of political economy and politics at Cornell University. In1899-1901he served as an expert agent of the United States industrial commission on investigation of trusts and industrial combinations in the United States and Europe, and contributed to vols. i., viii. and xiii. of this commission's report (1900 and 1901), vol. viii. being a report, written wholly by him, on industrial combinations in Europe. In1901-1902he was special commissioner of the United States war department on colonial administration, and wrote a Report on Certain Economic Questions in the English and Dutch Colonies in the Orient, published (1902) by the bureau of insular affairs; and in 1903 he was adviser to the Mexican ministry of finance on projected currency changes. In1903-1904he was a member of the United States commission on international exchange, in especial charge of the reform of currency in China; in 1905 he was special representative of the United States with the imperial Chinese special mission visiting the United States. In 1907 he became a member of the United States immigration commission. Best known as an expert on "trusts," he has written besides on elections, ballot reform, proportional representation, on education (especially as a training for citizenship), on legislation regarding highways, &c.
His principal published works are Henry C. Carey als Nationalokonom (Halle a. S., 1885); The Trust Problem (1900; revised 1903); Great Fortunes (1906); Citizenship and the Schools (1906); and Principles of Politics (1909).