Saint Lucian economist (1915–1991)
The only Black economist to win the Nobel Prize, and the architect of a model that explained how poor countries could industrialize by pulling surplus labor out of subsistence farming into factories.
Born in Saint Lucia on 23 January 1915, Lewis built a career that led him to Princeton, where he became the James Madison Professor of Political Economy. His 1954 paper "Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour" introduced the dual-sector model: a framework showing how economies with vast agricultural populations and surplus labor could fuel industrial growth by shifting workers into a modern capitalist sector. The insight reshaped development economics and earned him the Nobel Memorial Prize, a distinction no other Black economist has claimed. He died on 15 June 1991.
Sourced, dated quotes from W. Arthur Lewis
My interest in overhead costs was the structure of prices in situations where average cost per unit exceeds marginal cost.
A number of developing countries had been developing for a long time: Ceylon, for example, for a hundred years. Why was the standard of living of the masses still so low?
I make the point to remind you, if reminder be necessary, that the study of economic growth is still in its infancy.
Looking backward over my life, it has been a queer mixture.
There are still people who discuss industrialization as... an alternative to agricultural improvement... this approach is without meaning in the West Indian Islands.
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