Arthur Lewis (economist)

Sir William Arthur Lewis (January 23, 1915 June 15, 1991) was a Saint Lucian economist well known for his contributions in the field of economic development. In 1979 he won the Nobel Prize in Economics, becoming the first black person to win a Nobel Prize in a category other than peace.

Biography

Lewis was born in Saint Lucia, then still a British territory in the Caribbean. After gaining his BSc. in 1937 and Ph.D. in 1940 at the London School of Economics, Lewis lectured at the University of Manchester before being appointed Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies in 1959. In 1963 he was both knighted and appointed a University Professor (a position in which he would remain until his retirement in 1983) and in 1970 became director of the Caribbean Development Bank. Between 1964-1991 he was full professor in the department of Economics at Princeton University. He died on June 15, 1991 in Bridgetown, Barbados and was buried in the grounds of the St Lucian community college named in his honour.

Lewis' achievements have been recognised by the naming of "The Arthur Lewis Building" (opened in 2007) at the University of Manchester where he once lectured.

Lewisian Turning Point

According to Lewis, developing country's industrial wages begin to rise quickly at the point when the supply of surplus labor from the countryside tapers off.

The point, named after him, recently got wide circulation in context of economic development in China.

See Also

• Black Nobel Prize laureates

References

• Biography
• Biography on the 'Sir Arthur Lewis Community College' website
• Breit, William and Barry T. Hirsch (Eds. 2004). Lives of the Laureates(4th ed.). Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-52450-3.

External links

• St. Lucian Nobel Laureates
• Nobel e-Museum: Arthur Lewis
• Sir Arthur Lewis Community College, Saint Lucia
• Sir Arthur Lewis – Prize Lecture
• IDEAS/RePEc