IN MEMORIAM
Our colleague and much-admired friend Alice Amsden passed away in her sleep at home on 14th March 2012 after a period of illness. Alice, a prolific writer and scholar for decades, emphasized the importance of the state as a vehicle for economic development and saw knowledge as a powerful determinant of economic growth and human development. She could be credited as having been one of the most heterodox economists in the world, and certainly within the field of development.
Alice was a co-director of the UNU-WIDER project on ‘The Role of Elites in Economic Development’, which examines the formation and perpetuation of elites and their impact on development outcomes. In some countries, the preferences of elites are closely aligned with the national interest. Elsewhere, however, their predation is a major source of development failures.
The output of the project is due to be published shortly in the summer of 2012 by Oxford University Press, in a book of the same title of which Alice was a co-editor. The book will be dedicated to her memory, her wit, and above all, her keen intellect and vision.
Alice
Amsden
Project Co-Director
Contact information
Barton L Weller Professor of Political Economy
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA 02139