William Arthur Lewis

Information about William Arthur Lewis

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.

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. 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.

His contributions

Lewis's Nobel prize-winning work consists of 2 models that describe and explain the problems facing developing nations.

Lewis's two-tier model (Dual Sector model)

This model at its simplest describes an economy with 2 sectors - traditional (with low wages and a nearly infinite supply of labour) and modern (where the bulk of the capital resides). The traditional sector's labour migrates to the modern capitalist sector, attracted by the initially higher wages. Competition forces the wages of workers in the modern sector down to the levels of those in the agricultural sector. This leads to high profits in the modern sector, which finances its further expansion.

This model thus provides an explanation as to why so often in developing nations, wages remain low and capital rents high, even as development continues apace.

Lewis's terms of trade model

Lewis then modelled the way the terms of trade between developed and developing nations are determined. He showed that in trade between 2 groups of countries (rich and poor) who produce 2 products each (food in both, coffee in the poor countries and steel in the rich) and trade the products that are not produced in common, the terms of trade are determined by the relative labour productivities in the agricultural sector. Specifically, the low productivity of labour in the poor countries' agricultural sector compared to the rich countries' agricultural sector will determine the terms of trade between them.

External links

 •  • [ e]
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics Laureates
Milton Friedman (1976) • Bertil Ohlin / James Meade (1977) • Herbert Simon (1978) • Theodore Schultz / William Arthur Lewis (1979) • Lawrence Klein (1980) • James Tobin (1981) • George Stigler (1982) • Grard Debreu (1983) • Richard Stone (1984) • Franco Modigliani (1985) • James M. Buchanan (1986) • Robert Solow (1987) • Maurice Allais (1988) • Trygve Haavelmo (1989) • Harry Markowitz / Merton Miller / William Forsyth Sharpe (1990) • Ronald Coase (1991) • Gary Becker (1992) • Robert Fogel / Douglass North (1993) • John Harsanyi / John Forbes Nash / Reinhard Selten (1994) • Robert Lucas, Jr. (1995) • James Mirrlees / William Vickrey (1996) • Robert C. Merton / Myron Scholes (1997) • Amartya Sen (1998) • Robert Mundell (1999) • James Heckman / Daniel McFadden (2000)
January 23 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events

  • 393 - Roman Emperor Theodosius I proclaims his nine year old son Honorius co-emperor.

..... Click the link for more information.
19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1880s  1890s  1900s  - 1910s -  1920s  1930s  1940s
1912 1913 1914 - 1915 - 1916 1917 1918

Year 1915 (MCMXV
..... Click the link for more information.
June 15 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events


..... Click the link for more information.
19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1960s  1970s  1980s  - 1990s -  2000s  2010s  2020s
1988 1989 1990 - 1991 - 1992 1993 1994

Year 1991 (MCMXCI
..... Click the link for more information.
Motto
"The Land, The People, The Light"
Anthem
Sons and Daughters of Saint Lucia


Capital
(and largest city) Castries

..... Click the link for more information.
19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1940s  1950s  1960s  - 1970s -  1980s  1990s  2000s
1976 1977 1978 - 1979 - 1980 1981 1982

Also: 1979 by Smashing Pumpkins.

..... Click the link for more information.
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, commonly called the Nobel Prize in Economics, is a prize awarded each year for outstanding intellectual contributions in the field of economics.
..... Click the link for more information.
This page is currently protected from editing until disputes have been resolved.
Protection is not an endorsement of the current [ version] ([ protection log]).
..... Click the link for more information.
Motto
"The Land, The People, The Light"
Anthem
Sons and Daughters of Saint Lucia


Capital
(and largest city) Castries

..... Click the link for more information.
Caribbean (Dutch: Cariben or Caraïben, or more commonly Antillen; French: Caraïbe or more commonly Antilles; Spanish: Caribe
..... Click the link for more information.
The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a specialist constituent college of the University of London. Founded in 1895, the LSE features in the top four universities in the United Kingdom according to most published league tables.
..... Click the link for more information.
The University of Manchester is a university located in Manchester, England. With over 40,000 students studying 500 academic programmes, more than 10,000 staff and an annual income of nearly £600 million it is the largest single-site University in the United Kingdom and receives
..... Click the link for more information.
A Vice-Chancellor (commonly called the VC) of a university in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, New Zealand, other Commonwealth countries, and some universities in Hong Kong, is the chief executive of the University.
..... Click the link for more information.
University of the West Indies, also known as UWI, is an autonomous regional institution supported by and serving 16 English speaking countries and territories in the Caribbean : Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, the British Virgin Islands, the
..... Click the link for more information.
19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1930s  1940s  1950s  - 1960s -  1970s  1980s  1990s
1960 1961 1962 - 1963 - 1964 1965 1966

Year 1963 (MCMLXIII
..... Click the link for more information.
The meaning of the word professor (Latin: person who professes to be an expert in some art or science, teacher of highest rank[1]) varies. In most English-speaking countries, it refers to a senior academic who holds a departmental chair
..... Click the link for more information.
19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1940s  1950s  1960s  - 1970s -  1980s  1990s  2000s
1967 1968 1969 - 1970 - 1971 1972 1973

Year 1970 (MCMLXX
..... Click the link for more information.
The Caribbean Development Bank is a financial institution which assists Caribbean nations in financing social and economic programs in its member countries. Created on October 18, 1969 by a conference of eighteen countries and territories in Kingston, Jamaica, it has its
..... Click the link for more information.
June 15 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events


..... Click the link for more information.
19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1960s  1970s  1980s  - 1990s -  2000s  2010s  2020s
1988 1989 1990 - 1991 - 1992 1993 1994

Year 1991 (MCMXCI
..... Click the link for more information.
Bridgetown
The location of Bridgetown (the red star)
Coordinates:
Country Barbados
Parish Saint Michael
Established 1628
Area
 - City  15.
..... Click the link for more information.
Dual Sector model, or the Lewis model, is a model in Developmental economics that explains the growth of a developing economy in terms of a labour transition between two sectors, a traditional agricultural sector and a modern industrial sector.
..... Click the link for more information.
labour (or labor) is a measure of the work done by human beings. It is conventionally contrasted with such other factors of production as land and capital. There are theories which have created a concept called human capital (referring to the skills that workers possess, not
..... Click the link for more information.
capital (also called capital city or political capital — although the latter phrase has a second meaning based on an alternative sense of "capital") is the center of government.
..... Click the link for more information.
Competition is the rivalry of two or more parties over something. Competition occurs naturally between living organisms which coexist in an environment with limited resources. For example, animals compete over water supplies, food, and mates.
..... Click the link for more information.
developing country has a relatively low standard of living, an undeveloped industrial base, and a moderate to low Human Development Index (HDI) score. In developing countries, there is low per capita income, widespread poverty, and low capital formation.
..... Click the link for more information.
In international economics and international trade, terms of trade or TOT are the ratio of the price of an export commodity/-ies to the price of an import commodity/-ies. "Terms of trade" are sometimes used as a proxy for the relative social welfare of a country, but this heuristic
..... Click the link for more information.
Coffee is a widely consumed beverage prepared from roasted seeds, commonly called beans, of the coffee plant. Coffee was first consumed in the 9th century, when it was discovered in the highlands of Ethiopia.
..... Click the link for more information.
Steel is an alloy consisting mostly of iron, with a carbon content between 0.02% and 1.7 or 2.04% by weight (C:1000–10,8.67Fe), depending on grade. Carbon is the most cost-effective alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used such as manganese and
..... Click the link for more information.
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, commonly called the Nobel Prize in Economics, is a prize awarded each year for outstanding intellectual contributions in the field of economics.
..... Click the link for more information.

This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia.org - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the wikipedia encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.