W. Arthur Lewis

Sir Arthur Lewis
Sir William Arthur Lewis, official Nobel Prize photo
Born	William Arthur Lewis (1915-01-23)23 January 1915 Castries, Saint Lucia, British Windward Islands
Died	Saint Michael, Barbados
Nationality	Saint Lucia, United Kingdom
Fields	Economics
Institutions	LSE (1938–48) University of Manchester (1948–58) University of West Indies (1959–63) Princeton University (1963–91)
Alma mater	LSE
Thesis	The economics of loyalty contracts (1940)
Doctoral advisor	Sir Arnold Plant
Known for	Development Economics Industrial structure History of the World Economy
Notable awards	Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (1979)
Spouse	Glady Jacobs Lewis (m. 1947), 2 daughters

Sir William Arthur Lewis (23 January 1915 – 15 June 1991) was a Saint Lucian economist well known for his contributions in the field of economic development. In 1979 he won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.

Biography

Arthur Lewis was born in Castries, Saint Lucia, then still part of the British Windward Islands federal colony, as the fourth of five children of George and Ida Lewis. His parents had migrated from Antigua shortly after the turn of the century. George Lewis died when Arthur turned seven, and Ida raised their five children alone. Arthur was a gifted student and was promoted two classes ahead of his age. After finishing school at the age of 15, Lewis worked as a clerk, while waiting to take his university entrance exam. During this time he became friends with Eric Williams, the future first prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, and the two remained lifelong friends.

After gaining his Bachelor of Science degree in 1937 and a Ph.D. degree in 1940 at the London School of Economics (LSE), Lewis worked as a member of the staff at the LSE until 1948. In 1947, he married Gladys Jacobs, and they had two daughters together.

That year he was selected as a lecturer at the University of Manchester, and moved there with his family. He taught at Manchester until 1957. During this period, he developed some of his most important concepts about the patterns of capital and wages in developing countries. He particularly became known for his contributions to development economics, of great interest as former colonies began to gain independence from European nations.

When Ghana gained independence in 1957, its government appointed Lewis as their first economic advisor. He helped draw up its first Five-Year Development Plan (1959–63).

In 1959 Lewis returned to the Caribbean region when appointed Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies. In 1963 he was knighted for his contributions to economics.

That year, he was also appointed a University Professor at Princeton University and moved to the United States. Lewis worked at Princeton for the next two decades, teaching generations of students until his retirement in 1983. In 1970 Lewis also was selected as the first president of the Caribbean Development Bank, serving in that capacity until 1973.

Lewis received the Nobel prize in Economics in 1979, sharing it with Theodore Schultz.

He died on 15 June 1991 in Bridgetown, Barbados. He was buried in the grounds of the St Lucian community college named in his honour. He was survived by his wife, Gladys Jacobs Lewis of Barbados and Princeton, NJ; two daughters, Elizabeth Lewis of Cranbury, NJ, and Barbara Virgil of Brooklyn; and four brothers, Stanley Lewis of Ghana, Earl Lewis of Trinidad, Allen Lewis, a former Governor General of St Lucia, and Victor Lewis of St Lucia.

Legacy and honours

• Arthur Lewis Community College, St. Lucia, was named in his honour.
• The Arthur Lewis Building (opened in 2007) at the University of Manchester was named for him, as he had lectured there for several years before entering governmental positions.

Key works

The "Lewis Model"

Lewis published in 1954 what was to be his most influential development economics article, "Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour" (Manchester School). In this publication, he introduced what came to be called the Dual Sector model, or the "Lewis Model".

Lewis combined an analysis of the historical experience of developed countries with the central ideas of the classical economists to produce a broad picture of the development process. In his theory, a "capitalist" sector develops by taking labour from a non-capitalist backward "subsistence" sector. At an early stage of development, the "unlimited" supply of labour from the subsistence economy means that the capitalist sector can expand for some time without the need to raise wages. This results in higher returns to capital, which are reinvested in capital accumulation. In turn, the increase in the capital stock leads the "capitalists" to expand employment by drawing further labour from the subsistence sector. Given the assumptions of the model (for example, that the profits are reinvested and that capital accumulation does not substitute for skilled labour in production), the process becomes self-sustaining and leads to modernization and economic development.

The point at which the excess labour in the subsistence sector is fully absorbed into the modern sector, and where further capital accumulation begins to increase wages, is sometimes called the Lewisian turning point. It has recently been widely discussed in the context of economic development in China.

The Theory of Economic Growth

Lewis published The Theory of Economic Growth in 1955 in which he sought to “provide an appropriate framework for studying economic development,” driven by a combination of “curiosity and of practical need.”

See also

• Black Nobel Prize laureates
• Dual-sector model

References

• Biography
• Biography on the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College website
• Breit, William, and Barry T. Hirsch (eds, 2004). Lives of the Laureates (4th edn). Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-52450-3.

External links

• Arthur Lewis Papers at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University
• Saint Lucian Nobel Laureates
• Biography available in Nobel Laureates of Saint Lucia
• Nobel e-Museum: Arthur Lewis
• Sir Arthur Lewis Community College, Saint Lucia
• Sir Arthur Lewis – Nobel Prize Lecture
• IDEAS/RePEc
• The Lewisian Turning Point and Its Implications to Labor Protection (The Institute of Population and Labor Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)

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